Little after dark
by esama
Summary: Terrible things happen to those that meddle with time, but sometimes it was worth it. Meddling with the affairs of dragons, though, that was a different thing. AU with some OOCness, swearing and a Creature!Harry.
1. Downtrodden

**Little after dark**

**I chapter**

**Downtrodden**

"Come on, we need to hurry," Hermione hissed softly to the younger women, the words almost immediately whisked away by the cold wind. She wished she could've been a little kinder, spoken a little softer, but the cold wasn't making her feel particularly sympathetic, not even though Ginny was obviously in pain and Luna's eyes were reddened and surrounded by shadows after all the sleepless nights. They both looked so worn, and so young that it made her feel almost physical pain - and so cold that she almost wanted to wrap her own worn cloak around them.

But they didn't have the time for sympathy. Every second was precious.

"Damn it," Ginny answered with a wince, leaning onto Luna heavily and trying to avoid putting weight on her wounded, probably broken leg. "You should've left me. You'd already be there if -"

"Not after all the trouble we went through to get you out," Hermione muttered, her words so sharp and cutting that she nearly felt guilty for saying them. "We need you." Ginny seemed to have no answer that and Luna was simply too tired to speak at all, so the eldest of the three women shook her head at her own words, and reached out to take Ginny's other hand. "We need to hurry," she said again, taking most of the redhead's weight to carry and starting to drag her up and ahead along the winding mountain path.

The wind was getting colder, and there was hint of snow in it now. Hermione tried not to think about it, but the clouds above them didn't look all that promising. The short way up to the mountain top was tedious enough considering how tired and wounded they were after all the running and fighting, but should it start to snow… It really made her wish at least one of them still had a wand left so that they could cast a protective charm.

She shook the wish away as quickly as she could, and concentrated ahead instead. None of them had held a wand in years, not since the Ministry had started to apply the Black Chain policy on the so called approved magicians - and burned all the wands without the chain to bind them to their users and their users alone. It was a useless to start longing after old wands now.

Instead, she concentrated ahead. They had to get there. They had fought so hard to get to where they were now. All the planning, and fighting and killing - and torture, the Merlin forsaken torture - would be meaningless unless they would get there, unless they would push forward and _make it_. If they couldn't, then all would be lost. "Come on," she muttered. "Come on. We're almost there."

The words seemed to have next to no effect on her companions, but at least they did not show any signs of stopping. Not even poor Luna who was half unconscious. That made Hermione herself press on a little harder, hoist Ginny's arm over her shoulder a little better, and step each step with determination. They were almost there, almost there…

And there it was, just visible in the distance and through the beginning of an upcoming snow storm. The infamous cage that she had for years believed to be a mere rumour. It was smaller than she had thought, she mused at first, but as they step by step got closer, it got bigger and bigger until it stood upon them taller than a building - and then almost as tall as the Hogwarts castle.

"Fuck," Ginny whispered breathlessly, staring up at it with similar shock that Hermione felt. "It's huge."

"Big enough for flight - but not even for false impression of freedom," Luna murmured tiredly, blinking her eyes slowly and sighing. "A wingspan away from fantasy and never less than real. A torture truly of a magicians design."

"Poetic," Hermione murmured, swallowing and peering inside the enormous cage, hopeful. He had to be there. All the rumours said that he was there, under curses and spells and who knew what potions, mutated and mutilated and tortured for Voldemort's amusement - but alive and present. Turned near immortal to ensure Voldemort's own immortality.

But the cage seemed to be empty, filled only with piles upon piles of snow that seemed to get bigger the closer they got. "We should go inside," she said, shivering as wind blew her hood down and then started blowing snow to against her bare neck. Her hair, which was only starting to grow back, was barely a protection against the wind. "To find him. It'll be safer too."

"Safe inside of a cage with no doubt insane monster. Yeah, that sounds pleasant," Ginny muttered, but made no objections as they limped towards the cage, and then past the enormous metal bars and inside, easily fitting through the gap between them. It really made Hermione, how big could he be if the gaps in the cage were as big as doors?

It was no warmer inside the snowy cage as the bars offered no protection from the snow or the wind - it was in fact a little colder there. But they had ignored worse pains and discomforts, and instead kept wading in the ever growing snow, trying to find what they were looking for. But the cage was vast and they moved very slowly, and as they got deeper into the cage, the snow got deeper as swell and their pace turned slower.

"Luna, Ginny, you take a break. I will look around," Hermione said finally, knowing she moved the fastest through the snow as she maintained most of her strength. The younger women seemed happy to stay behind, Ginny crumbling to the snow and trying to attend to her wounded leg while Luna sighed and sat down as well. Neither cared for the cold - at this point frost bites were the least of their worries.

After giving them a last, rather guilty glance, Hermione headed forward, looking around and trying to find something else but the seemingly never ending snow. The piles suggested that there was something there, something that had been moving once - otherwise the snow would be smooth and untouched - but the layer of snow upon the piles seemed mostly unscathed. Whatever lived in the cage, it hadn't moved much at least in few days.

"Come on," she murmured again, absently repeating the words she had been saying over and over what seemed like days now, and looked around herself. "You _have_ to be here. Come on. You have to."

But only the blowing of the wind answered her, the sound mostly dulled by the snow. Frowning, Hermione pulled her hood up again to protect her neck from the cold, and continued on her way. She would make it across the cage, then take a slightly different route back towards the others, then turn to a different direction again… it shouldn't take long to cover most of the cage and find what she was looking for.

And hopefully, Harry would still have enough sanity left not to attack her, whatever he looked like now.

Pushing the thought away - it was _Harry_, he would know her, no matter what had been done to him - she braved forward, ignoring the wind and how her feet ached with the cold. But she found only old signs of movement. Aside from her own tracks, the snow in the surface was untouched all the way to the other end of the cage, and as she made half circle route towards the others, it continued the same. It seemed like nothing but wind had disturbed the snow for a long while.

"Well?" Ginny asked when Hermione reached her. She had peeled back the pant of her rough trousers to reveal a severely bruised knee and leg, and plenty of dried - or frozen - blood surrounding the wound.

"He has to be here," Hermione said. "Why else would the cage be here?"

"How about to lead people like us on?" Ginny muttered, glancing around them. "Maybe he's dead, buried under the snow."

"_He _would not allow it," Luna said almost gently as she ripped the hem of her stolen cloak to make some bandages. "Too many supports, too much in stake - too great a need."

Hermione smiled grimly. "Yeah. You-know-who needs Harry too much, he wouldn't allow Harry to die," she murmured, peering into the whiteness again. That was the point in the whole thing, after all, or that was what the Death Eaters had said anyway. To keep Harry alive for as long as possible. It couldn't be just a trap. Right? "I'm going to make another round."

"Take your time," Ginny muttered and laughed dryly. "We're not going anywhere."

The elder woman shook her head, glanced over them once to make sure neither one was in danger of passing out or anything, and then headed away again, this time adopting a new direction. Zigzagging between the mounts of snow, she looked left and right, praying to see a glimpse of colour. She was almost ready to change direction, when she saw a dark shape in the distance, and let out a sigh of relief. "Finally," she muttered, and hurried ahead.

"Harry?" she called cautiously as she got closer to the dark shape, blurry in the ever increasing blizzard. "Harry, is that you? It's… it's me, Hermione! Do you remember me?"

The shape didn't move, making her frown and hurry closer. It was big, big enough to be the size of a giant. "Merlin, Harry, what has he done to you," she murmured, not really a question. She had seen what had been done to some people who opposed Voldemort. Mutations and disfigurations were nothing, these days. "Harry!" she called, wondering if he had been made deaf by whatever Voldemort had done. "Harry, come on, can you hear me? It's me, Hermione!"

Finally, the shape moved, turning - and then reaching forward her. Instinct, born out of too much running away, made her hurriedly duck to the side and out of the reach of a - of a hand. She gaped as it swept over her clumsily, and then hurriedly scurried back as she realised that the shape wasn't _just_ giant sized. It was _a_ giant.

"Oh, bloody -" she started and then stopped. This was _bad_. Really, really bad. "You can't be… oh, please, don't be…!" If _this_ was Harry…!

"Huuman," the giant said sleepily as she hurried to her feet. "Huuman in cage. Huuman in cage! Not supposed to be! Not allowed!" it bellowed, standing up - and Merlin, it was tall. "Garak can eat human! Dark master say so!"

"Fuck," Hermione hissed and barely managed to duck out of the way of another attempt to reach her. She had barely enough time to feel relieved that the giant was apparently _not_ Harry, as she hurriedly she got to her feet and attempted to run away. It was a task made difficult not only by the wind and the snow but the fact that she didn't know which way to go. If there was one giant in the cage, then there was a chance that there was another one too - any way she went she could risk running into another one. Not that the giant's bellowing wasn't already alerting whatever other horrors they might lay inside the cage to them

And, most of all, she couldn't lead it to the others. They weren't in any state to run away.

"Come baack, huuman!" the giant roared after him, stomping through the snow easily whilst she staggered and struggled against it. "Garak hungry!"

The best chance she had would be to get out of the cage, but that would leave the others unprotected - and if there was another giant outside the cage, that would be bad too. She cursed under her breath, and turned to the edge of the cage. The risk of running into another threat was nothing in comparison to the risk of getting the others killed. She had dragged them here and it was her duty to protect them. Even if there was so very little she could do.

"Here, over here!" she screamed at the giant when it lost the sight of her, and roaring against the giant stomped after her, kicking up snow and making the ground shudder as it went. Above them Hermione could hear the enormous cage groan and grind, the sound distant and somehow larger than life, making her feel even smaller and helpless than she already did. But she hadn't survived this long to die without a fight, she hadn't watched most of her friends and loved ones die in agony to give up. As long as she had _breath_ in her, there was some hope.

"Come on!" she barked at the giant. "I'm over here! Come on!" and the giant did, yelling and bellowing, lumbering forward with the grace of a humanoid boulder. It would take it only few steps to reach her, she knew, but she was almost at the edge of the cage and if she was lucky she would reach it in time to duck out of it - and out of the giant's reach. "Come on!" she screamed again, and hurried forward, sure that the others had heard her by now, and were already running away. They might be tired and worn but they weren't idiots.

She _almost_ reached the edge before a black shape shot out of the snow, barrelling towards her so fast that it was merely a blur. Instinct alone saved her life as she ducked down and out of the way, the shape rushing over her sharply. What followed was a breathless grunt from the giant and then a roar of anger - and suddenly, so much snow rained on Hermione that she was momentarily buried beneath it.

She only barely managed to not panic as the snow almost immobilised her, but keeping her cool now was too important, so she fought herself free and to her feet again, knee deep in the snow and with some of it raining down her neck. Looking around wildly and trying to find the giant and the new threat and to see which way to run, her eyes caught the blurred shapes of the two large figures as they collapsed into the snow, the giant rolling and growling as the other shape, long and sleek, wrapped around it. She stared at the odd, gigantic wrestling match for a moment before realising her chance and hurried away.

It had been a mistake to come here, she realised as she breathlessly ran towards the place where she had left the others. They shouldn't have risked it, and ran away instead - they should've hidden. It would've done no good; they would've been caught eventually, captured, and enslaved again. But momentarily freedom would've been better than no freedom at all - momentarily peace better than this.

Ginny was right. This, Hermione thought with bitter taste in her mouth, was a trap made obviously for fools like her. They had set Harry as bait for her, to give her the foolish notion that she could reach him and free him or something, and then, in the cage, there was nothing but horrors waiting to kill her and any other idiot who still maintained the hope of fighting.

"Idiot, idiot, I'm an idiot," she muttered, and glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the giant, and whatever the other thing was, weren't following her. But thankfully their shapes were getting blurrier in the snow and with a curse falling from her lips, she turned to look ahead instead. "Ginny, Luna!" she called, and got no answer.

The place she had left the others was vacant, their tracks leading back and towards the edge of the cage. Cursing and praising them for their good sense, she turned to run after them, hoping that they were outside the cage already and out of the harms way.

But they weren't. She saw their shapes soon enough, huddling some thirty feet from the cage's edge - and then saw the reason why they had not gotten out yet. "Grunkar can't reach!" an angry giant was growling outside, reaching one enormous hand inside the cage, trying to reach the women who had stayed a safe distance away.

"Why was this a good idea again?" Ginny was yelling, looking around and then spotting a Hermione. "Damn it, Hermione! I could've easily come up with easier ways to get ourselves killed! Much warmer too!"

Hermione had little to offer to that, little explanation to give now that all her plans had fallen to ruin. She didn't even bother to defend herself, or apologise, as there was no use. Ginny wouldn't accept either of them, and Luna wouldn't care either way. "Yeah," she just said, feeling tired and too young and way too old - and too helpless by far. "I know."

"Huuman, come close huuman," the giant outside was growling, and somewhere in the distance the grunts and growls and odd screeches of the other beasts could be heard. The snow and the increasing wind did not help make the situation seem any more hopeful than it could've possibly been. The only option they seemed to have left, it seemed, was very unpleasant deaths.

"Fuck, this is so…" Ginny started to growl, but couldn't apparently think of a term violent enough to encompass the situation. Hermione snorted mirthlessly in agreement and glanced around them in complete agreement.

"For what's it worth," she muttered. "We probably got further than anyone else."

"Yeah, we made it to the huge death trap that bastard set out to wait any idiot that was stupid enough to try it. Yay us," Ginny laughed dryly and sat down into the snow with a grunt of pain. "Yay us," she muttered again and sighed. Luna, sitting beside her, seemed content saying nothing and closing her eyes instead.

Hermione looked at them, helpless and torn with the feeling, cursing herself and Voldemort and all of creation for allowing this to happen. They were _so young_, and so broken up. She remembered when Ginny had been a sweet little redhead that had had been head over heels with her best friend, and when Luna had been just a pretty little oddity Harry had seemed amused with. Merlin and god only knew what had happened to them after the war and defeat and then slavery had separated them - though she could see some of it in them. Ginny was so crude now, not to mention about the shape of her body, enhanced by magic and potions to be more appealing - and then there was the place where she had rescued her from. And Luna… who knew what she had been subjugated to after Death Eaters had found out about her Seer talents. Nothing good, judging by her mental state.

Not to mention about the fact they just sat there, not even bothering to try and come up with a way to escape from upcoming death. Hermione knew that there was no way. With a giant inside and another outside… They had no wands, no abilities to escape - all slaves were fed with anti-apparition potions after all. There was no way. It was frustrating, it was _infuriating_ to be trapped so between one way to die and another, but that was all there was.

But maybe, in a way, death would be relief for them. Hermione eyed the two others, feeling like crying, and cursed _everything_ in the world, hating herself for thinking it, unable to stop it. She squeezed her hands into fists, hissing between her teeth. She could see Ron's corpse in her mind, and how Neville's body had been crucified in the Hogwarts yard as reminder and warning, she remembered the other muggleborns and how they had been worked to death in the camps - the camps where she too had almost ended up dying. Not to mention about when they had served as entertainment for their twisted masters.

So many people deserved to die for all those atrocities. So many people deserved to be punished. And yet, they wouldn't be, they would never be punished, nothing would ever be done, because… because no one was left to fight. Swallowing her bitter tears and screams of pure rage and frustration, she held her chin high and cursed the god, if there was such a being, for letting the world get so bloody messed up.

And she would never know if her plan could've worked or not. Not now, not ever, not if she died right here and now.

"I wish I had died years ago," Ginny said suddenly. "In the battle at Hogwarts. That would've been nice way to go. With some hope, you know. Not knowing all this shit."

Hermione glanced at her and sighed. "Yeah," she murmured, thinking back to it. Back to when they had thought they still had a chance.

"In my sleep with my head in a pillow, back when the stars were still in the sky and the heavens stayed above," Luna murmured dreamily. "When clouds were white and waters blue and ground stayed steady beneath my feet. I would've liked to die in my sleep."

"That would've been nice too," Ginny agreed with a chuckle and closed her eyes, wincing. "Do you think it would've worked?" she asked, trying to straighten her broken leg, ignoring the groans of longing of the giant outside the cage.

Hermione sighed, and sat down. "Probably not," she muttered with defeat, scooting closer to the others and wrapping her arms around them, sharing last bit of warmth with the younger women, who had no doubt felt no kindness in years. "But I would've still liked to try," she murmured, burying her nose in Ginny's long red hair.

"It would've been nice, if it had worked," the redhead murmured, turning to her and leaning to the warmth. "It was a nice fantasy."

"A dream of a better yesterday," Luna agreed, burying her face in Hermione's shoulder and sighing heavily. "And an unknown tomorrow. A sweet and gentle as glass shards, a wish like that."

"Yeah, more or less," Hermione murmured, suddenly acutely aware that the sounds of struggles coming from behind her had ceased. One of the monsters had apparently beaten the other. Whichever had won didn't really matter at this point, she mused, closing her eyes and holding the two other close. All they could hope for was quick death. Painless one was probably too much to ask for, though.

"Hush, my love, there is no need to cry… what you feel right now… will fade," Luna murmured, humming tiredly. "Lift your chin; this here is no goodbye… There's no reason to be… afraid…"

Luna smiled and there was a shudder in the rhythm of Ginny's already strained breath as a shadow fell on them. Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blow and the pain that didn't come. For a moment, there was silence only broken by the giant's growling and moaning outside, before Hermione dared to open her eyes again, and glance behind her.

The fear froze her so that she couldn't even scream at the sight of the teeth, gleaming white against the dark scales as the monster - no, a _dragon_ - leaned down to see her, it's muzzle wet and steaming. When the dragon exhaled - breath of heat and steam in the cold - she did make a sound, a gasp of shock that made Ginny look up as well and Luna tilt her head.

"You got to be _kidding_ me," Ginny whispered, looking up with the same horror Hermione felt. Giants was bad enough, but a _dragon_? Voldemort's trap had a ___dragon_ in it? The bastard really went the extra mile to kill off his enemies, it seemed.

But, despite the perfect opportunity and the fact that the three women were unable to escape, the dragon didn't attack, merely stared down on them, growling and bathing them in its heavy, heated breath. For one, insane moment Hermione wondered if it was tame and waiting for orders - maybe it wasn't allowed to kill humans like the giants were - but almost immediately he had to smother the odd, panicked urge to giggle. There was no such thing as a _tame_ dragon.

Still, the dragon didn't attack, merely stared at them like they were something it hadn't seen before. "M-maybe it doesn't like to eat humans?" Ginny offered in shaky voice.

"Don't be silly," Luna answered before Hermione could, and the tone of the blonde woman's voice made her, against all her self preservation instincts, turn to look at her. Luna was smiling, reaching over Hermione's shoulder and towards the dragon. "Harry wouldn't eat us."

Hermione blinked rather stupidly and then followed Luna's hand and to look at the motionless dragon that was still staring at them. She hadn't been able to see beyond the teeth - it was still hard to look past them - but when she did she saw something strange. Green eyes, wide and intelligent - enormous jagged scar that cut right over the black scales of the beast's forehead, like white lightning bolt.

"It can't be," Ginny murmured, eyes wide and disbelieving. "Why would that bastard… and it should be impossible… How…"

"I think," Hermione started, swallowing. "In the camps, some muggeborns were used for potion testing. There were… transformations." She shuddered at the memory of one man in the camps, who had mutated into a dark, winged monster and killed several of the other slaves before the Death Eaters had put him down. "I never thought it, but maybe… maybe they were perfecting the formula for… for this."

"Longevity and strength, powerful enough to stand storms and sands of time," Luna said, reaching even further, trying to touch the dragon's snout, ignoring its low, and threatening growling. "Contained and imprisoned, never to leave, still strong enough to live further than any man, strong enough to survive almost all attacks…"

"That bastard wouldn't make Harry powerful," Ginny said, shaking her head. "He wouldn't make Harry powerful. It would be a threat."

"A dragon is no threat to powerful wizard," Hermione said, holding Luna back so that she wouldn't anger the beast that could or could not be her best friend. "And they do live long. Some live for thousands of years. And as long as Harry is alive -"

She cut off as Luna leaned so heavily over her that she almost fell over. The blonde girl was smiling widely, her hand now resting on the black snout, heedless of the sharp teeth just half a foot below her hand. "Hello Harry," she said happily. "We would like to fly through time. Would you carry us? Hermione has a spell…"

"Careful!" Hermione hissed, making a move to stop Luna before she got them all killed. The dragon, however, made no move to eat the hand that touched it, or anything else, merely eyed them for a moment before closing its eyes, and sighing so heavily that it made the hood of Hermione's cloak flap.

For a strained, confused moment none of them said anything, just stared at the dragon as it relaxed under the touch of Luna's hand, and how Luna's fingers, so pale and fragile against the dark scales, petted the dragon like it was a dog and not a ferocious monster. Hermione let out a quivering breath, glancing at Ginny who looked back with similar confusion in her eyes that the elder woman felt churning in her chest.

"Harry?" she then asked, and the dragon opened its eyes. "H-Harry?" she asked again. The dragon's eyes, enormous and brilliant, seemed oddly intelligent. But did it know them? "H-Harry, it's me, Hermione. And this is Ginny, and Luna. C-can you remember us?" It seemed like stupid, idiotic thing to hope for - it was a _dragon_, for Merlin's sake - but Luna was still touching the dragon, and the beast had still not attacked them, so maybe, just _maybe_…

The dragon sighed, and pulled back and away from Luna's touching. Hermione felt a shudder go though Ginny as the beast straightened its neck - and blimey, it was big. Not that it had looked small up close and personal, but only when there was a little distance it was easy to see how long its body was. Long, black with odd, sharp and jagged looking scales that lengthened into full spikes in the back, forming what looked like a messy, spiky mane. For a moment Hermione couldn't help but think that how _Harry-like_ it looked, with such mane-like scales.

Then the dragon did something so odd, that Hermione forgot all about the way it looked - she even forgot the cold and the bitterness and the giant outside the cage for a split of a second. "Her… mione," it said, voice low and growling and still understandable. "Ginny… Luna."

"Merlin's balls," Ginny whispered while Hermione only gaped at the dragon as it sat back to its haunches shifting its enormous wings and settling them comfortably against its back.

"How can…" Hermione started, unable to quite get the question out right because it was more or less stupid. It was impossible to turn people into dragons, that was stuff of fairytales and fantasies no one believed - or so she had thought. And yet, here it was, a dragon once a man. If Voldemort could manage _that_, then why not this as well? "Incredible," she whispered and if the situation would've been any different, if this was years ago, in a better world, she would've been impressed.

"To have an appreciative ear and mouth to word objections," Luna said while staggering to her shaking feet. "And countering words to make you feel powerful and right against his weak and wrong. A chained strength to display yours and monstrosity to display beauty - and soul and intelligent mind captured to make freedom sweet and victory even sweeter."

"What?" Ginny asked, looking up to Luna with confusion as the pale woman waded through the snow and closer to the dragon, to touch its enormous talons.

"He kept Harry intelligent and able to speak so that he could gloat," Hermione understood, she too standing up. "You can still understand, can you, Harry? You still remember?" She asked hopefully, following Luna closer to the dark dragon.

The dragon didn't answer at first, merely looked down to them in silence before saying, slowly, the voice rumbling low like an earthquake, "I thought you were dead." The words sounded oddly lost, like it did not know what to think about what it saw.

No, not it, Hermione thought to herself while Luna sat on top of the dragon's - _Harry's_ - talons and leaned to his enormous front leg. He. Him. _Harry._

"I thought everyone died," the dragon murmured.

"We were almost as good as," Ginny answered before Hermione could formulate an answer, she too getting to her wounded feet. "We were enslaved, all of us. Well, most of us are all dead; the bastards killed most of the Order and the DA years and years ago. Merlin knows how we all survived." She grunted, trying to rest her weight on her unbroken leg. "Hermione escaped the labour camps - what, few months ago? She busted Luna out first, and me about a week ago. And here we are now. On a fool's errand."

"I see," the dragon answered, still sounding confused, looking down to Luna who was now hugging his foreleg - or trying to anyway, impossible task considering it was several times as thick as she was and she couldn't even begin to get her arms around it. "But I don't understand," he rumbled quietly - or what counted as quiet for a dragon.

"There is a spell," Hermione started, stepping forward and to Luna's side. "It took us years to develop in the labour camps, with me and dozen others working on it. It doesn't need wands or such, all it needs is three witches to cast it, and a fourth person act as the spell's direction. If… if it works, we could go back in time, and change all this. Stop the war before it happened. Kill _him_ long before he started."

Harry didn't answer immediately, glancing away instead and contemplating the words in moment of quiet. "So that's why you're here," he then murmured, inhaling a cloud of smoke and steam mixed. "Was there… was there no one else?"

Hermione blinked, a little surprise by the quick uptake. Years ago, when she had seen Harry last - and for the last time as human - he wouldn't have picked it up. He would've asked why, he would've told her she should've gone after someone else, an easier target… but apparently no more. Few moments, and he had understood the reason for their presence, why they had come to him, and no one else. "Everyone is dead," Hermione whispered. "Sure, there are others, other slaves who would jump at the chance, but…"

"You can't trust anyone anymore," Ginny snorted. "Everyone sells their arms and legs and insides for little bit of relief and comfort these days. They'd just give us up and reap the rewards of that."

"It had to be you, anyway," Hermione said. "And not just because you were the only one I knew we still could trust."

"Even when I'm like this?" the dragon questioned, shaking his sizeable head and making the mane of spikes and thorns that his scales formed shudder. None of the women had much to say to that, as they had more or less expected to encounter something… less than human. "_He_ took my magic away," he then said, more of explanation than objection or even a complaint. Just a fact, spoken plainly.

"He did…?" Hermione murmured, trying not to shudder at the thought of loosing magic. She had lost most of hers, of course. Her wand, her ability to Apparate… but she still _had_ magic in her. To lose that too… but it didn't matter. What was done was done, and she doubted it was reversible. No use crying for spilled milk

"It's okay. You don't need to spell cast, just act as the anchor," she said, trying to sound stronger than she felt. "Also, there is another thing. The spell will… probably be rough. Nothing like using a time turner," she admitted. "A man would not, probably, handle it. A monster, on other hand…" the words were left hanging in the air for a moment, before she added. "I heard rumours - everyone did - about what… _he_ did to you."

"He gloats," the dragon agreed. "So, you heard about my… transformation."

"I didn't know exactly what you became, I don't think many do, but everyone heard the gossip," Hermione shrugged. "So many Death Eaters spoke about it that there had to be some seed of truth in it."

"Theirs are opinions of a trophy, perched upon a cold pedestal of victory and triumph, his display of superiority over fallen foe," Luna said, leaning her cheek against Harry's dark, rough scales. "To hold and keep for all eternity to remind all what happens to those he considers his enemies."

"Yeah," Hermione nodded in agreement, and looked up to the dragon. "But I knew he wanted to keep you alive not because he wants to show everyone up, but because you keep him alive, you're his anchor to life," she said, shrugging her shoulders, long since over any conflicted emotions about that matter. "For that he would make you… endurable."

"Of course, we didn't know he turned you into a bloody dragon, of all things," Ginny muttered, leaning to Hermione's shoulder for support. "Why a _dragon_?" she asked, sounding a little bewildered. "Sure, he needs you alive and the longer the better, but he didn't need to turn you into a _dragon_. It would make sense if it was something, I don't know, simpler. And less powerful. And knowing him, _uglier_."

"I don't know for sure, but I think it's because it couldn't be done, before," Harry answered, oddly calm. "Because he wanted to see if he could do it. And because I am his Horcrux."

"A perfectionist demanding perfection for what he abhors," Luna murmured. "And adores."

Hermione grimaced a little at that while Ginny snorted at her side. It made sense, in a horrible way, for Voldemort to do something this revolutionary just because he could.

"Yes," the dragon nodded his large head to Luna, and let out another deep steamy exhale. "So, knowing _some_ of this, you came here, because you need a trustworthy monster to handle your spell," he murmured, glancing up to the sky beyond the cage and seeming oddly amused for a moment - like appreciating some irony they didn't know about. Then he looked down again. "Only one person can do magic inside this cage," he then said.

Hermione nodded in understanding. Magical dampening fields were everywhere these days - the labour camps were all under them, except for those where they needed the slaves to do magic. However, they had figured a way - a horrible, way but one nonetheless - to overcome it. "I don't think that will be an issue," she said, hoping dearly that it was only a dampening field in the cage. If there was some other, more complicated, the spell… might not work.

"Well… if you're sure," Harry murmured, sounding a little unsure - and hearing disbelief in a voice so deep and rough and inhuman was rather strange, and not at all comforting. "Are you up to it?" the dragon then asked, eyes flickering between Luna and Ginny. "You don't look too good."

"It… it wasn't easy to get here," Hermione admitted, glancing at Ginny and wrapping her arm around the younger woman's waist. "But without food, rest, warmth… we're not about to get any stronger," she said, straightening her back and her resolve. There was no room for doubts. "The sooner we do it, the better."

"Yes," Harry agreed, nodding his head. "There won't be much time in any case. Death Eaters patrol here often and since I incapacitated the giant, they will check up on me soon."

"Then we need to get to work," Hermione nodded as well, looking at Ginny and then at Luna. "Right?"

"Yes," Ginny said, taking a deep breath and straightening up a little. Though her face was pale and there was droplet of bloodstained sweat running down her cheek, her eyes were full of fire and determination. "Let's get this shit over with."

"Let's fly through time," Luna hummed, nuzzling her face once more against Harry's foreleg before standing up.

x

I don't really have explanation for this, just that I wanted to write this crossover ever since reading His Majesty's Dragon. Took me year and half to actually get to the writing part, but here we are. Writing Harry as a dragon, though, that has been bugging me a whole lot longer. So I guess I'm killing two birds with one stone. Or two dragons with one bomb. Hmm. My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.

Also, to avoid confusion, this is not just a story with Harry as a Temeraire universe's type of dragon. It's a full cross with Temeraire characters and all.


	2. Freefall

**II chapter**

**Freefall  
**

It was like a dream - or maybe one of those odd, reversing nightmares that Voldemort sometimes gave him, which started out pleasant and happy and hopeful and ended up with him watching his dear ones die once more. But it was real, Harry knew, for two reasons. First, he still felt the aches and pains and fresh bites the giant had managed to inflict on him before he had managed to down it. And two, the reversing nightmares always started with him as a human.

Still, he was confused - and maybe a little bit terrified - at the sight and feel of the three women, so small and so fragile, Lilliputian even, as they pressed to his side. The only humans he had seen in years were Death Eaters - and of course Voldemort who came around once a week at least to offer him new mental tortures. To see some… friendly faces after so long was, maybe, the worse torture there was. Especially when they all looked so different, so weak, so… strange.

He closed his eyes, listening to the distant droning of Hermione's spell. Voldemort had told him he had killed everyone. He had even shown Harry illusions and few times even brought him bodies - one horrible time, he had even brought Inferi. For very long he had found both unfathomable grief and strange relief in the thought that he was all that remained of the Order and the Army. Grief for obvious reasons - relief because at least that way no one was suffering anymore.

But if Hermione, Ginny and Luna were still somehow alive, then who else? Of course, Voldemort _would_ lie about something like this if he thought it beneficial, it was something you could expect of him. But in this case Harry didn't really understand what benefit was there in hiding this truth. It would've been worse to think them as slaves, than as dead. He knew, in painstaking detail, what the life of Voldemort's enemies and those he considered inferior was like these days. He had seen the slave camps through the dark lord's mind often enough.

It almost made him want to ask what had happened to the women along the years - but in the end, he desperately didn't want to know. Ignorance seemed better than to regret something he couldn't have stopped. Now wasn't the time to ask anyhow. It was better to concentrate onto the fact that they were miraculously alive - that they had a _plan_ and a _way_ out of the hell hole the world had became.

He let out a low grunt, as he suddenly felt a spike of pain at his chest - directly where Hermione stood with her hands resting on his scales. Immediately after another twinge of pain followed, this one coming from Ginny's direction where she was resting her palms on his side. There might've been a third spike coming from Luna, but the sudden feel of pressure inside his chest overrode everything else, making him inhale and exhale quickly in attempt to relief it. It didn't work. He even blew out a little bit of smoke and fire and the pressure only got worse.

"What is… happening…?" he finally growled, as the pressure turned painful and made him almost unable to breathe at all. It was like ball of… something hot and boiling was inside him, locked somewhere between his lungs, right above where his fire came from. He exhaled another flame of fire in attempt to relieve the pressure, but to no use.

None of the women answered. Hermione was too busy chanting the words of the lengthy spell, and by the looks of it Harry wasn't the only one the spell took its toll on. Luna had fallen to her knees and was panting heavily whilst Ginny was leaning to his side, letting out pained gasps. Though Hermione was still speaking, as strong as in the beginning, even her voice was laced with agony.

Harry growled, almost stepping back and away - because this did not feel like spell at all, but rather another form of torture. Maybe it was an illusion, maybe the women weren't there at all - maybe it was Voldemort again and this was another way to mess with his mind… but he knew differently. Voldemort's imagination was limited - he wouldn't have aged the women right for an illusion, he wouldn't have dressed them like they were, he wouldn't have cut Hermione's hair - he would've kept them more recognizable. So the dragon stayed still, panting steam and smoke from between clenched teeth, and tried to bear with it.

As pain went, he had felt worse. Concentrating onto that thought, he ignored the pounding in his head and the sensation growing ever worse inside him. There were sparks now, like lightning bouncing inside his chest, making his muscles quiver. His tail was twitching, he felt distantly, the heavy arrowhead at the end of it burying into the snow and kicking it up as it did. His talons were clenching, clawing the icy ground hidden underneath the blanket of frozen water.

Hermione yelled out the last words of the spell, and Harry roared as the pressure inside him exploded. As he went blind and deaf with the pain, he thought it felt like someone had blocked his fire-way and stopped him from breathing out the flames. Voldemort had done that once, and it had almost killed Harry, when the fire had kept on building and almost ended up exploding inside him. But this was different, because it burst out through him like a wave, and then out of him.

Harry could distantly hear the women screaming, before the snowy ground fell from beneath him and suddenly he was falling.

It took him a moment to catch up that it wasn't merely a sensation for falling, he wasn't feeling dizzy or light headed, he was _actually_ falling through what seemed like snow at first, but proved to be actually steam - no, _clouds_. He remained frozen - or as frozen as one could be whilst falling - for a moment with his wings flapping in the air like loose pieces of leather, before another realisation came to him, in the screams of the three women. _He wasn't falling alone_.

And there was probably ground somewhere below, waiting to catch them off guard.

It was one of those odd instincts Harry had found he had after the transformations and mutations had taken their final form, that made him turn in the air. Forcing his wings to cooperate was harder - he had never gotten much practice with flying, the cage had never been big enough, not even when he had been smaller - but somehow he managed. It proved to be a mistake, because as soon as he managed to get the wings into proper position to flap, his descent slowed drastically - whilst the three women continued fall at much higher speed.

The dive he fell into was not a dragon instinct but a Quidditch one, he thought, because it did not come to him like a second nature, but like something old and familiar, something he had done once but almost forgotten. He pressed his body into smooth form, like pressing against a broom, with his wings laid against his back, like compensating for a cloak that wasn't there. His tail remained tight and straight, the end of a broom that wasn't there, directing his descend. But heavens, was he ever much _faster_ than he had ever been on a broom.

He caught Ginny first - her cloak had caught strangely and was slowing her descent. She was screaming madly, trying to flap her hands and stop herself falling - useless reflex she couldn't control. It stopped immediately, when Harry caught her as carefully as he could to his talons. But, even as she spluttered and looked up to him, eyes bleary with pain and with wind whipping her long hair all around her, there was no time to soothe her. There were still others to catch.

"Hold on _tight_," Harry demanded, and dived again. Ginny's scream flew right past him as the speed increased once more, to much higher velocity than whatever she had yet experienced, as Harry's weight and the shape of his body made him speed through the air. It would've been enjoyable, exhilarating - maybe even a little pleasurable - just to _dive_ like that and finally experience flight in its full beauty. But this wasn't the time.

Luna was the next one - she had spread her arms and legs and unlike Ginny, she seemed almost calm. When Harry's shadow fell on her, she tried to look at him over her shoulder. It was almost like she had been expecting him, he thought as he reached and caught her like he had caught Ginny.

She was laughing. "Fly, Harry, fly!"

"You're bloody insane!" Ginny screamed in answer.

Harry ignored both of them, and dived, the air silencing both Luna's laugh and Ginny's yells in his ear as he held the women gently against his chest and looked for Hermione. His eyes, so much more better than they had once been, scanned the shapes of the clouds and the colouration, seeing where an air current had blown holes into them. Old Quidditch instincts read the wind and the air, the pressure and how much Hermione could've moved whilst falling. There, he thought, there was the trail, and he dived.

He might've nicked one of the women with his talons as he transferred Ginny and Luna to same hold, but there was no way to check, no time, as he reached his free front leg out, to catch the last woman. The clouds thinned around him as he fell and fell, breaking up until suddenly the air was clear and all he could see was green as far as eye could see, mountains and forests - and small figure, falling towards them.

Hermione was limb when he caught her, unconscious. Harry didn't have the time to guess whether it was because she had fainted due to the fall and lack of air, or because of the spell. The earth was coming up at them too quickly. So, pressing her close to his chest as well, he spread his wings in mad attempt to slow his dive, growling at the feel of strain they felt as the air hit them. He could already feel sprains at the joints and breaches in the edge of the membranes where they broke, but ignored it. Instead he started beating his wings to further slow his descent, almost knocking himself off balance as he did, but somehow managing to stabilize the fall.

He still almost crashed to the trees in the end. Thankfully he somehow managed to wrap his wings around himself and the women to protect them, as fall eventually ended into violent, painful landing that knocked the breath out of him.

"Uuh, that hurt," he grumbled. His wing joints were aching badly and he had a feeling that at least one of them was dislocated. Grunting in pain, he turned to his side and pulled the one of his wings that still could move out of the way so that he could look at his precious burden. "Everyone okay?"

"Hermione!" Ginny called out after getting her bearings, and climbed out of Harry's hold to check on the other woman. With her wounded leg it didn't look like easy task, but she didn't let the pain bother her as she pulled Harry's talons apart to see the woman they had been cradling. She quickly checked her over, before sighing. "She's alive."

"Luna?" Harry asked, looking at the third woman. She had gotten the breath knocked out of her as well, but she was alright as well, it seemed. The dragon sighed with relief. Thank Merlin.

"A fun side effect the spell got," Ginny sighed, leaning to Harry's foreleg heavily. She glanced up to the dragon and smiled rather sardonically. "Without you we'd be lovely little smears on the forest floor right about now."

"A flight on wings of midnight black in the dawn of age and time; hear me now, forest of old, I felt the sky and the sky is fine!" Luna laughed, stumbling out from Harry's talons and spreading her arms in triumph. "Flying is _fun_!"

"I'm glad you think so," Harry answered with a groan and gently set Hermione's unresponsive form to the ground. Then he tried to push himself up and to his haunches so that he could take a look at his wings - only to find that he had little to no strength left. "Ugh," he sighed, and lay back down. "I think I broke my wing," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder.

"I think we're all more or less broken." Ginny answered, crumbling down to the ground. "Oww, my leg," she hissed, straightening her wounded leg carefully. "If it wasn't busted before, it damned well is now."

Harry sighed, closing his eyes. Now that the excitement was over and no one was in immediate danger of dying, he felt really tired. "That spell," he said. "How does it work?" His chest was still aching, even though the pressure was gone.

"Hermione didn't explain all of it, but it works on the inside," Ginny said while Luna kneeled beside Hermione. "That's how it could be done inside dampening field, because the fields only kill the magic in the air. You were the vessel for the spell, we were the power, Hermione was the incantation. Or something."

"Oh. That explains why it hurt so much," Harry murmured. And why they needed a monster. A human would've been blown apart with that thing inside them. "I don't think I much like this form of time travel."

"Me neither," the redhead agreed, sighing. "I think I'll pass out a little right now," she said, leaning her head back. "If you don't mind."

"Hmm," Harry answered, closing his eyes for a moment to quell the fatigue and the pain. Then he opened them up again and looked around them to see where they were. The area didn't look familiar, making him wonder if they had moved through space as well as through time. But if nothing else, it was more than obvious that they had moved _somehow_ and, most probably, though time. With greenery surrounding them at all sides, it was pretty obvious that it wasn't winter anymore.

"A little off of the mark," Luna said while climbing to sit on Harry's foreleg. "Too far to the mists and the sands. A prototype magic not tested, not proven, only theories on top of theories and musings atop fantasies. Not confirmed right, not tested properly."

"We're not when we're supposed to be?" Harry asked worriedly, looking down to her while Ginny fell into tired slumber at his side. "How do you know?"

"A mind blown open," the pale blonde answered, tapping her forehead. "Torn asunder here. To see more and further than meant to, to know more, to _glimpse_. A talent hidden, hardly present, forced to too much use by words and drinks forced to take, never given much choice. Now…" she trailed away and smiled. "Cannot un-see."

"Ah," Harry murmured, not really understanding but getting the gist of it. "I suppose I wasn't the only one who got the taste of forced transformations," he said, looking away. It was nothing surprising, really. Voldemort had always had his own ideas about what people should be like.

"To sleep is the worst," the woman said quietly, looking at Ginny who had lapsed into sleep. "More tiresome than to be awake. So many images. So much noise. So much chaos."

Harry looked down to her, not able to say much to it. She did seem… tired. Insomniac even. He had thought it was because of whatever struggles the women had to go through to get to him, but now he suspected it was different. He had had his share of odd dreams and visions, so he understood how they could rob one of his rest.

"Still," Luna said, yawning. "Perhaps here the sands of time lay still, for a while. A quiet period in time, here. No chaos." She trailed away and sighed. "I am so very tired."

"Sleep," Harry answered to the unspoken question, glancing at the other women. They all seemed in desperate need of rest. "I'll keep watch."

And he did, pushing back his own pains and aches and ignoring whatever fatigue that tried to take hold of him. Instead he enjoyed the sounds and smells of the forest around him, breathing in the smell of the moist, forest air. He had been bound on the mountaintop for so long that he had forgotten what it could be like, just to experience so much life around him. Not to mention about how much warmer it was, especially when the clouds started to break up over head and the sun started to shine. In the mountain it was always windy and even the warmest days had a cold edge to them. But not here - and after the weeks and weeks of snowy winter, it was definitely welcome.

He would get sick of it soon, though, he knew. He had never much liked summers in general, but they disagreed with him with whole new manner now that he was a dragon.

Whilst Ginny and Luna slept, Hermione roused once from her unconsciousness only to mumble few words of nonsense and then fall asleep. Harry did nothing to rouse her or the others, keeping still and trying not to disturb Luna who had curled up on his forearm. Hours passed like that, but they did not feel all that tedious even though he spent them alone in the silence. He had gotten used to longer, more uncomfortable periods of loneliness. This was nothing.

Eventually it started to get dark, though, and the need for rest was replaced by something else. Harry had really no need for a shelter - he was a fifty foot dragon, there was little the elements could throw at him that he couldn't take. The women were a different thing, however, so he gently nudged Luna and Ginny with his talons to try and rouse them before it got too dark to travel.

Ginny was the first to awaken, murmuring "Whatzit," sleepily and almost falling to her side, before catching herself. The pain of movement was probably what woke her rather than Harry's nudging, as she broke into pained hisses and curses soon after. "Damn it," she murmured, rubbing her knee. "How long have I been…?"

"Few hours," Harry answered, lowering his head and nudging Hermione's side with his snout. "Hermione, wake up."

"Hngh," the short haired woman groaned, turning to her side, before sitting up sharply and almost hitting her forehead against Harry's cheek. "What, where -?" she asked, then stopped to look around, and finally looked up to Harry with wide eyes. "What …?"

"The spell, you dolt, the spell," Ginny answered while pushing herself to her feet with a small groan. "Remember? Time travel? Well, it worked, somehow. Only it involved a lot more falling than I thought. You passed out somewhere in the middle of it."

The brunette stared at her for a moment in incomprehension before squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Oww, my head…" she mumbled before taking a deep breath and looking up again and then around them. "Where are we?"

"Hard to say. It doesn't look familiar," Harry said, while Luna roused, looking still tired and slightly bleary eyed. "Either way, it might not be best to stay here for the night, not knowing the forest. If it's anything like the Forbidden Forest."

"Hear, hear," Ginny agreed. "Though I doubt we'd have anything to fear from any forest, with you around."

"Maybe. But even like this I wouldn't want to get lost in Forbidden Forest at night. Not with all the Acromantulas," Harry murmured. Even the years hadn't made him forget what it had been like, the run away from hundreds of giant spiders. "I think we're not far from a mountain - it might be a little safer there, if we can make it."

"Yes. Let's… let's get to higher ground," Hermione answered, frowning. "Except… a dragon in plain sight might not be good idea. If muggles see you - or wizards -"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Harry answered, not particularly concerned. He hadn't had much a reason to be concerned for himself in the last years so he didn't really fear whatever would happen if wizards would find him. But the women… he wanted them safe. "Let's just get to moving," he said and started to stand up, shuddering a little at the pain. The movement made the dislocated wing move awkwardly and it was not the most pleasant feeling he had ever felt. "I - I think first someone has to fix my wing," he said as he realised that like this, the wing would drag after him and only get worse.

"What is wrong with your wing?" Hermione asked worriedly, trying to see to Harry's back.

"Oh yeah, it was dislocated, wasn't it?" Ginny asked with a frown, sizing Harry's better wing. "I'm not sure what we could do about it. Your wings aren't exactly small, you know."

"A matter of a size and weight and strength is no matter at all," Luna answered with a yawn and then, without any hesitation, started climbing up Harry's side by using the protruding ends of his spiky scales as handholds. For Harry it felt rather strange - no one had ever tried something like that - but knowing how little it would take to shake her off, he kept still so that she wouldn't fall. "What is required, to fix a broken flight, is aim and leverage," the woman said once she was on top of Harry, and crawling over the bigger spikes of his back to the other side and to the other wing. "A right spot and push."

Harry turned his head to see over his shoulder and to where Luna was moving whilst Hermione stepped to his side and tried his scales carefully. Whilst the blonde girl inspected his wing, prodding here and there and making twinges of pain spread from the dislocated joint, Hermione started climb as well. Ginny, grounded by her injury, remained on the forest floor, peering up.

"A right spot and a push, huh," the brunette asked as she joined Luna, kneeling awkwardly by the wing joint and examining the damage.

"A made match. Not easy to separate, even harder to rejoin - but meant to be," Luna said. "A support here, here, there," she pointed. "And as he turns, we'll have flight once more."

"What?" Harry asked worriedly. "What does that mean?"

"She means that if we can put the bone in right angle and support it, it should pop back in if you would just turn towards it," Hermione said, running her hand over her face and frowning. "It might work. But how could we support the wing and make it stay still?" with a sigh, she glanced around them. "Maybe against a tree?"

Harry followed her gaze and shook his head. "That won't work," he mused. "The tree is too thin, it wouldn't stay still."

"Then between two trees, with us holding it in place while you turn," Hermione said, nodding, and stepping around the wing joint to drop down from his back. It was a long enough drop to almost make her fall to her knees, but she shook it off quickly and hurriedly went to look around them. In the other side of Harry, Ginny did the same until a perfect spot was found. With Hermione and Luna supporting his wing as much as they could - which wasn't much, it weighted too much for them to lift it - Harry moved to the spot and shifted around until his wing was supported between the trees. It was anything but comfortable, but he grit his teeth and ignored the pain, waiting for Luna to find the perfect angle for the bone.

"You know what you're doing, right?" he had to ask after a moment of watching her examine the joint and tell him to shift a little to get the wing to move to right spot. Of course he trusted them, but it was his _wing_. He couldn't help but feel nervous about it.

"Luna was top of my class in Care of Magical Creatures, Harry," Ginny said, patting his neck comfortingly. "She even helped Hagrid tend to the Thestrals back when we were in school."

Harry nodded, not thinking about how long it had been since those times or how badly Luna's mind had deteriorated since. Instead he told himself that among all of them, she probably was the one who knew the best. Still, it didn't stop him from watching the process worryingly and fear that he would end up snapping the wing bones under his own weight and would never fly again.

"Alright," Luna finally said after some dozen small adjustments, and slipped down from Harry's back to hold the wing in place. Whilst she and Hermione held onto the wing at the finger point Ginny watched the process silently from the side, leaning onto a tree branch she had picked for a crutch. "Now, turn towards us," the blonde woman said to the dragon. "Push to the wing."

Harry swallowed and then did as ordered. It hurt, it really hurt, as the bone pressed all wrong into the socket, grinding in the cradle of muscles and sinews. But as neither Luna nor Hermione said anything or told him to stop, he continued despite the pain and pushed, moving a little to meet the bone until -

The sharp pain that followed blinded him for a moment, knocking air out of him and making him gasp. But it had worked, he knew immediately. It hurt, the entire area of his wing joint was pulsing with pain and each beat of his heart made the pain spread, but he could tell that he had his wing back.

"Oh, good," he sighed with relief, pulling the wing up and against his back a little gingerly, trying to make the movement as painless as possible.

"Is the wing okay otherwise? No breaks, right?" Hermione asked, walking to his side again and peering up to the now properly attached wing.

"None that I can tell. Just… don't ask me to try and fly just yet," Harry said sighing.

"Good, that's good," Hermione sighed, smiling up to him and then glancing at the other women. "We should get moving now," she said. "We're wasting daylight."

"No arguments from me. Except… you know, the goddamn obvious," Ginny said, leaning to the branch as she limbed back to the others. "You mind giving me a ride, Harry? I'm going to slow you guys down otherwise.

"I can carry all of you, no problem," Harry assured. "If you can sit on my back, that is," he added, glancing over his shoulders. With the spikes, it probably wasn't the most comfortable method of transportation.

But still, the women helped each other to the dragon's back, taking support of Harry's leg and shoulder as they did. They didn't sat astride, as Harry as too big for that, but instead they sat sideways with Ginny supported between the two others, and all three holding onto the spikes for support.

"Everyone holding on?" Harry asked, glancing back at them.

"We're fine. Let's get going," Hermione assured and with answering nod, Harry stood up and started to carry the women towards where he at least hoped the nearby mountain he had seen was. It was hard to tell with the surrounding forests, and the crash landing had left him a little disoriented about the directions, but the ground seemed to get higher as they went, so hopefully he was going the right way.

"Are we heavy?" Ginny asked after while as Harry walked, painstakingly trying to fit between the trees which here and there grew rather close to each other.

"I can feel you, but that's about it," Harry answered. He couldn't actually tell the weight at all, all he could sense was a presence, and slightest pressure. There would need to be whole lot more weight than whatever the three women weighted together for it to actually feel heavy for him.

"Big for a Hebridean Black. Skinny, but big," Luna said thoughtfully. "Perhaps somehow spelled so, manipulated. Much heavier than should be in any case - like a Horntail, but with wider wingspan."

"Hebridean Black?" Harry asked curiously. Was that his breed? He hadn't though he actually had one - he had thought that Voldemort had more or less created a whole new breed in order to make him. "He probably did make me bigger than he originally intended to. There were…" he trailed away, thinking back to when the transformations had started, "instabilities. In the beginning I mean."

The women didn't answer at first, before Hermione asked carefully, "How long have you been a dragon?"

"Hmm… two, three years. The whole process took pretty long, though - I haven't been human at least for five years now," the dragon answered. "It hasn't been easy to keep count."

"Do you miss it?" Ginny asked quietly. "Being human?"

"Sometimes," Harry admitted, not really sad about it. "But I don't mind this that much. Of course, if I had a choice, I would've wished it not to happen. Obviously I would've rather been human, a wizard. But… without Voldemort and the Death Eaters, being a dragon wouldn't have been bad."

"So, you wouldn't mind it if we couldn't reverse it?" Hermione asked thoughtfully.

"Actually… I think I prefer you wouldn't even try," Harry answered, licking his teeth a little nervously. "Being human was fun, sure. But I don't want to go through years of mutations to get back to it if I can choose. I'll rather just remain as I am now."

None of the others seemed to know what to say to that, and for a long while Harry walked in silence. It was one of the things they probably wouldn't be able to really talk about, he thought. Not yet anyway. Though to him his transformation was no longer something he hated or felt sad or angry about, he would probably never feel completely comfortable with the process that had changed him. However, he had long since stopped feeling like human trapped in dragon body. In more ways than one, he had stopped feeling like a human at all.

That was, probably, what would make it hard to talk about stuff like this, he mused. He was a dragon, not just human shaped like one, and he had accepted that - he even embraced it, in a way. It had been easier for his mind to give in and stop clinging to humanity. Being dragon gave a way out of certain… pains. He still had emotions, he still had memories and he still felt hurt like he had as a human - he still loved and longed like one, he knew. But there was a veneer of practicality about it. As a dragon, he didn't regret as much, didn't think of could've beens and what ifs.

He lived more in the present. And as Voldemort captive, that had probably kept him from going insane.

He doubted the women would understand that - even if they could, it still would be hard to explain. And he didn't really want to justify himself or his decisions or emotions. He just wanted to be. Though, maybe it was the same for the women - if in different way. They had changed, gone through transformations of their own, and they had probably been painful too. And they didn't seem want to talk about it either.

It was best not wallow in any case.

The silence stretched, until the slow descent of the earth turned into a hillside, and then they came out of the woods and to the mountain side. There was still plenty of growth along the sides of the mountain, but it was scarcer and not as lively as in the forest, making it easier to see around. Harry climbed still a little higher until he found a somewhat straight spot, where he stopped.

"If we go higher, it will be colder. Windier," he said, glancing over his shoulder to the others. It was getting darker now, and soon it would be too dark for him to safely travel. He might've been a dragon, but even he couldn't see in the dark, and he didn't really feel like braving an unknown terrain when he had just gotten his latest injury fixed.

"Yeah, this is probably the best place," Hermione agreed, holding onto one of the larger spikes of Harry's mane and standing up on his back to look around. "It's not that much in the open either."

"It won't be comfortable though, I bet," Ginny mused.

"You can sleep under my wings, it should be less windy," Harry offered, and lay down onto his stomach to let the women down. "I can get you some wood from the forest too if you want to set a fire."

"I don't think it will be necessary," Hermione answered while she and Luna started to help Ginny down from Harry's back. "We can mange the night here with what we have, I'm sure," the short haired woman said once they were safely on the ground. "In the morning we will see where we are exactly and how we will proceed from there. And maybe, depending on how it looks, get some food."

"Food would be nice," Ginny agreed with a sigh while descending to the ground and straightening her injured leg. Harry's stomach definitely agreed with that sentiment - it had been days since he had eaten anything. "It would be nice to know when we are too," the redhead added, setting her crutch-branch onto the ground beside her. "Do you know, Hermione?"

"Not yet. It could be anything from ten to fifty years," the brunette admitted while peering up to the sky above them. "I'm not going to even pretend that the spell is perfected - this is the first time it has ever been used in action. There might've been… setbacks," she mused.

"Like falling from the sky?" Ginny asked with a snort.

Harry glanced at Luna, who was stretching her arms and peering into the distant horizon. She had said something about them being little off the mark. How much could they be off if anything from ten to fifty years was what they had been aiming for?

"I'll know for sure when the stars come out," Hermione said finally, sitting down beside the redhead. "I should be able to tell approximately where we are too, though I doubt we've moved much geographically. The area seems similar," she pointed out, nodding at the surrounding forests. "Does it look familiar to you, Harry?

"Hard to say. I couldn't actually see much from the mountain top," Harry admitted while settling himself down to the ground, situating himself between the women and the wind. Then he glanced up and around them, not finding anything familiar about the surroundings. He hadn't been close enough to the edge to see down from the mountain - the cage had kept him from seeing much anyway. "This could be the same mountain and I wouldn't be able to tell."

There was a period of quiet that followed, as they waited for the stars and contemplated, Harry thinking of the cage and Voldemort and possibility that it was all actually far behind him. It had been his life so long that this all felt like odd dream or a holiday, making him wait for its end with odd, detached dread. It really made him wonder what would happen when people would discover him. In time ten years, maybe twenty years before they time travelled, what would people do to him? Confine him in a dragon sanctuary? Study him?

Shaking the thought from his head, he laid his head down and glanced up to the sky. It didn't matter. He had felt the worst humanity had to offer - anything that would follow would no doubt be improvement in comparison to what he had already experienced.

The silence was eventually broken, though not really shattered, by Luna who had found comfortable spot sitting on Harry's foreleg. From there she peered above them as she hummed quietly a tune of some song Harry had never heard before. It was oddly broken and not really all that melodic, making him muse over whether it was how it had originally been or if Luna had just forgotten how it went. It was hard to tell how well Luna's mind worked, now.

While he contemplated about that, and when was the last time he had heard music, the stars started coming out. It was far from the first time he had seen it happen - in the cage there was little to do but to watch the days pass and the sky above him change - so it was nothing new. But even before Hermione started frowning and murmuring, he could tell something was a little… different about the sky. It didn't feel right.

"No, no, that can't be," Hermione finally muttered, standing up and peering up with a serious expression. While the others eyed her worriedly, she murmured something to herself, numbers and calculations, before turning abruptly away and picking up a sharp stone from the ground. As the others watched curiously, she crouched down and started scratching numbers to the ground, calculating something and glancing up every now and then. Watching her left Harry feeling an odd sensation of nostalgia - it was rather like it used to be, years ago, when they had been students and she had been rushing back and forth to the library. The feeling would've been almost pleasant if it wasn't so painful.

"We have a problem," Hermione finally said, ending the nostalgic moment sharply. "We've gone back too far."

"How much is too far?" Ginny asked with a frown. "Like sixty years? Hundred years?

"No," Hermione shook her head, and looked up to the strange sky again. "It's a lot more than that," she answered with a mirthless smile. "A few tens of thousands of years more."

As the silence fell again, this time sharp and awkward, Harry mused what it told about them when no one them tried to play it off as a joke.

x

My apologies for the confusion in the last chapter about not making the level of the cross-over-ness more clear. Yes, this will be a full blown (maybe even over the top) crossover with the Temeraire world. We'll even see Temeraire himself... eventually. My apologies for the grammar errors and such, and great big thank you to all who pointed the flaws in the last chapter :)


	3. Dragon's lair

**III chapter**

**Dragon's lair**

All in all, being stuck some tens of thousands of years in the past wasn't that bad, Ginny mused while limping her way down the mountain side and towards a brook where they got their water. Of course, they lacked all modern comforts and getting food wasn't easy, they had only the company of each other and Hermione was firmly against trying to find any humans. But hell, at least there weren't Death Eaters around. At least here they weren't slaves.

Though, with Hermione going about the way she was… the redhead let the thought trail away with a faint smile while leaning onto the branch she used as a crutch. The brunette had been in charge since beginning, of course, being the one with the plan and the spell and so forth. But it was different now that they weren't in immediate danger. Now she was rather like the boss, telling the others what to do - she was even bossing Harry around, though a bit more carefully than with the others. Sure it made sense, as she was still the one with the plan and the spell, but it was still different. And rather refreshing, really.

Hermione had really changed over the years. The last time Ginny had seen her she had been a sort of suck-up - a smart one, but one regardless. Always shadowing Harry and falling back to follow his lead. Well, Ginny had to admit that there was probably nothing wrong with that, Harry had been the leading type, after all, but this new Hermione… Who knew what had happened in the labour camps, but the former know-it-all had came out of those experiences with a brand new backbone.

It was probably just as well. Ginny would've had no idea what to do in Hermione's position - she wasn't that good with spells or planning, not really. And if not Hermione, who? Luna? Not bloody likely, with all the fluff she had in her head. And Harry, well, he was different now too.

Ginny stopped at that thought, and glanced behind her and up to the direction where their camp was. Different. That didn't quite cover a man-turned-into-a-dragon, not really. But it wasn't just that, she knew. The longer she watched him and listened to him, the less he seemed like Harry Potter. Sure, he had all the memories and such, but he was different. He was Harry the dragon now, with rather different world view.

Though who could blame him for that?

Shaking her head, she turned back to the brook and continued her slow descent. Of all four of them, Ginny couldn't help but think that she was the one who had changed the less. Oh, she had gone through her own changes, sure, and like the others she had had little to no choice about it. The things done to her, and taken from her… they were no less than what Hermione or Luna had gone through. The babies…

She frowned darkly and shook her head. No, it was no use thinking about them. They were gone and if Hermione would get the spell right, it would be like they had never been - they would never be. It was no use crying over spilled milk.

Maybe that was why she didn't feel that different from Ginny of some eight years previous. Because unlike Hermione who had strengthened, Luna who had little choice but to unravel and Harry who wasn't even _human_ anymore, Ginny had chosen to rely on apathy and just forget. It had helped her keep herself from going mad, though only with varying degrees of success.

As she reached the water, she turned her thoughts quickly away from the horrors of the past few years and instead sat down to a large rock by the water and straightened out her injured leg. Whilst listening to the soothing ripple of the water, she peeled back the leg of her rough pants to reveal the even rougher bandages and the sticks bound around her leg for some support. It wasn't enough, she knew, the leg would probably heal all wrong, but it was all that could be done in these circumstances. Thankfully, the fracture didn't seem bad and Luna had said the bone was still aligned right, so Ginny still held hope that she might come out of the injury without a permanent limp.

The process of unwrapping the bandages and then washing them kept her mind occupied for a moment. When it came to the point where all she had left to clean was the wounded area itself, she took a small break and let the leg just soak in the cool water. It probably wasn't perfectly sanitary or good for the injury, but it felt heavenly as the water cooled down the swelling and made the leg hurt a little less. It was the only reason why she bothered to make the hard journey down to the stream every day.

Every day, she mused, leaning back and looking up to the sky. They had been stuck in the distant past for long enough for her to start thinking of it in days. Soon, she knew she would start thinking of weeks. Maybe even months, depending on how long it would take Hermione to rework the spell so that they could go forward in time - and hopefully somewhere closer to their original time.

"Tens of thousands of bloody years," she muttered to herself and laughed a little. Well, it would've been a little bit too simple if they had managed to get it right immediately and nothing in life was that easy.

She soaked her leg for a while, before finally starting to clean it properly with a piece of cloth. Then she took out the folded leaf holding the herbal paste Luna had made for her, applying it around the wound. It was a small wonder Luna still remembered stuff like this after all that had happened and all that had been done to her, but Ginny was very much grateful for it. Of course it wasn't as good as proper potion would've been, but it was better than nothing and hopefully would keep the wound from getting infected.

After bandaging the leg and setting the sticks for support, Ginny took out the roughly made water skin they had managed to sew together, and filled it. After throwing the skin's strap over her shoulder, she took her rough crutch again and started to make her way up and towards the camp, hoping that Harry would be back from hunting, and that maybe he would have something to eat this time.

The redhead snorted to herself at the thought. A _dragon_ hunting for food for three damsels in distress. What a weird turn their lives had taken.

The way up took it's time, but Ginny braved the trip with firm resolution, ignoring the pain as she went. It wasn't as bad as it had been in any case, and getting exercise didn't hurt no matter how much her leg protested. And if she was out of breath and ready to take a few day's nap once she finally made it, it was only a sign of how much she needed the work out.

"How's it coming?" she asked, seeing that Hermione was scratching some calculations to the ground again.

"Slowly, very slowly," the short haired woman answered, glancing up. "How's the leg?"

"The same," Ginny answered, limping to the log Harry had carried over to serve as a seat, and slowly sat down to it. She glanced around to see if the others were there yet. It was hard to miss Harry's absence, as he was very easy to spot when he was present, but Luna was oddly unnoticeable these days. "Harry's not back from hunting yet, huh? Where's Luna?"

"Gathering herbs and such, I think," Hermione shrugged her shoulders, turning back to the calculations and scratching few more numbers down. "I told her not to go too far, though whether or not she'll listen is a different thing." She sighed and stood up, stretching her arms. "I've been thinking. How close to our original time do you suppose we need to get?"

"How should I know? I guess it depends on what we're actually trying to do," Ginny answered, rubbing her thigh.

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "The problem is that I'm not sure any more. Originally I thought of going back to the time when we lost the war and somehow helping our younger selves gain victory. But it's not something we can be absolutely sure we can do. So, I started thinking of going further back, to when _he_ was young, and not so powerful. Killing him when he's just a boy would stop the war from ever happening. It would have setbacks, it would undo timelines - maybe cause our deaths in the process. But if the war would never happen, maybe our deaths would be worth it and not that big a loss. But now…"

"But now?" the redhead asked, frowning

"Now I don't think I can make the spell that accurate," the brunette admitted. "Tens of thousands of years' worth of error doesn't really make me all that confident about this thing. Changing so that we can go forward in time is difficult enough, but to make it accurate even to the _century_ will be impossible. It's too… chaotic, and I don't think we can do it often enough to perfect the accuracy. It takes too much toll on us, and on Harry."

"So…?" Ginny asked, not really getting her line of thoughts. Other than they were screwed, but she had already known that.

"So, it got me thinking about the limits of time travel and about our aims. Time travel is full of paradoxes and unknowns, which is why it was so restricted - horrible things happened to people who messed with their own timelines. That is why I wanted to travel as little as possible and change only the essential in the beginning. Now, though, I know it's probably not possible, so…" Hermione trailed away and sighed. "I wonder what would happen if we were to kill _his_ grandfather before he had children, or something similar. Or great, great grandfather, or something similar."

"You know, you don't need to avoid his name," Ginny said. "We're not under the taboo anymore."

"Old habits," Hermione answered, waving the matter aside with her hand. "In any case I can _maybe_, and this is a big maybe, get us within five hundred years of our goal. We could end anywhere from the sixteenth century to the twenty first. And this is really optimistic thinking. The question is, is it enough…? And would the benefits be worth the risks? Meddling timelines so far back… we could undo our own lives. Our parent's lives even. "

"Well…" the redhead hummed thoughtfully. "Considering that if we don't do anything they will all die… I'd say yeah."

The brunette threw her a lopsided smile. "That brings things nicely to right perspective," she mused.

"Also, I can't speak for the others, but I'm not exactly scared of dying - or of not existing at all. If by erasing myself I can make sure Voldemort never rises, well. It'll be worth it," Ginny shrugged. "Besides, if we get close enough we might be able to get a time turner or something from that time and use it, right?"

"Hm. There is that," Hermione nodded, and after moment of thought went back to her calculations, this time without any hesitation.

Long periods of silence, Ginny found, were becoming a thing with them. Hermione was always working with the spell and too busy to talk, Luna was pretty quiet and when she spoke she mostly spoke in gibberish and Harry, well… he spoke, but one couldn't call him talkative. After living in the House for so long, where people had little to do to entertain themselves but gossip, well, it was different.

Everything was different. But it wasn't all bad, the redhead mused with a faint smile as she saw Harry's dark shape gliding over the forest and towards them with Luna riding his neck and with what looked like dead deer in his claws. "I see hunt went well," she noted as the dragon landed near their camp, coming up the last dozen feet on foot.

"Yeah. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it," Harry mused while dropping the dead animal to the ground and then lifting his front leg to help Luna get down from his back. "It's kind of like catching a snitch, except the snitch tends to hide in the woods a lot," he added, shaking his head. "And doesn't get off the ground."

"Well, this ought to be enough for us for a while," the redhead mused, pushing herself up and walking closer to inspect the carcass. It wasn't big as deer went, but it would keep them fed for few days. "Unless you want a share," she added, glancing up to the dragon.

"I'm fine, thanks. It's not the first I caught today," Harry answered, waiting until Luna was properly down and then sitting back on his haunches. "I know where they graze now; I shouldn't have much trouble finding them here-on."

"That's good," Ginny mused, glancing at Hermione who was muttering something to herself while scratching down few calculations, and then at Luna who was unfolding her cloak, to which she had gathered her herbs and berries. With a sigh the redhead accepted that gutting and skinning was apparently her duty once more, and pulled out the simple stone knife she had made. "You want the guts, Harry?" she asked, while pushing the deer to its back to get better access to the stomach.

"I wouldn't say no to them," the dragon answered, leaning in with interest. Ginny grinned at the look at his eyes, and got to work. While cutting through the skin of the deer's belly, she absently wondered what her seventeen-year-old-self would've thought of this situation - she probably would've retched and proclaimed it disgusting. But then, her seventeen-year-old-self hadn't helped in several childbirths. Or shared friendship and survival with a hungry dragon.

Harry made quick work of the deer's innards while Ginny skinned the animal. After glancing at the process from the side, Luna turned to get the sticks they used to cook their meat, and after bringing them to the redhead she went to pile some wood together. Behind her Ginny could feel the burst of warmth as Harry supplied the fire, but ignored it in order to concentrate onto the task at hand.

"Some herbs to better the taste, maybe," Luna offered once the fire was properly going.

"Spice these, then," Ginny said, handing over few of the strips of meat she had already stuck on the sticks, and concentrated onto getting rest of the meat off the deer's bones while Luna went about the cooking itself.

"Sorry I'm not helping, you two," Hermione said, glancing at them from her work. "But I need to get these calculations done."

"Don't worry about it. You're not much use when it comes to this anyway," Ginny snorted, thinking back to their second day in the past. Hermione and cooking didn't mix too well. Not that Ginny herself was a gourmet cook or anything, but at least she knew how to not burn what little food they had.

Once most of the meat was cooking, Ginny set the deer's head aside and then let Harry take the rest of what remained of the animal while she turned to the skin. They didn't have much in way of supplies, only what little clothes they had on them really, which made everything they found more or less precious. Skins were especially good because with some work they made good water skins and bags and such. Even if the tanning was time consuming and rather disgusting. "What to make of this," she murmured, while spreading the skin and trying to figure out how to go about cleaning it. "A bag, maybe?"

"To carry herbs and life and taste for food," Luna said carefully from the fire. "Cloak works, but is not ideal."

"Bag it is," Ginny nodded, and started cleaning the skin. By the time she got it done, some of the thinner strips of meat were ready to eat, and the smell of the food was even brining Hermione out of her calculations.

"How long do you think it will take before we can try the spell?" Ginny asked after pinning the pelt to the ground for the sun to dry. "Not that I'm complaining or anything, but if it's going to be long, well. I think it's going to be autumn here soon." And the idea of sleeping under the sky, as much better as it was comparison to the _House_, didn't appeal to her if it would be raining cats and dogs.

"It will take a while. I would rather not have to cast the spell many times, so I will try to get it right before we try it. It could be anything from weeks to months," Hermione sighed and glanced around them. "It's not so bad here, though, is it? It's pretty warm, there's food and water…"

"And I can shelter you from rain," Harry added, shifting his wings while trying to pick a piece of bone from between his teeth.

"Yeah, but still. Who knows how long it will stay warm outside," Ginny mused, and bit into the meat. It was a little too dry and the herbs Luna had sprinkled onto it didn't do all that much for the taste, but hell, it was still food. "Weeks to months, huh? Maybe, we should try and find a better place to stay. Like a cave or something. Maybe set some leafs and grass and stuff for beds, you know."

"It's not a bad idea," the short haired brunette mused, and glanced up to the dragon who was running his tongue over his sharp, enormous teeth. "Harry, you've been around these mountains a few times now, right? Do you think there might be something like that near by?"

"I haven't exactly looked for something like that, but it's possible," he agreed. "I can keep my eyes open for a cave the next time I go out."

The day turned to night and then to another day not that different from the day before. Whilst Hermione worked on her calculations and Luna did whatever it was that Luna did, Ginny exercised her bad leg in hopes of getting more mobility out of it, making the way down to the brook to wash it like she did every day. In the meanwhile, Harry was gone, flying around the mountains in search for a better camping spot. He didn't find it that day, but the day after he came back with good news - and just in time, Ginny thought as she peered up to the cloudy sky.

"It's not perfect and it's too high on the mountains to be entirely practical for you three, but it's dry and big enough for me too," the dragon said after landing. "I don't think you can make the way down from there on foot, but I can of course carry you where ever you need to go."

"I think it is best we take a look at the place before deciding," Hermione said after moment of contemplation. Ginny and Luna agreed to that, and after wrapping up their food and securing what little they owned, they climbed to Harry's back, each taking a sturdy hold of the dragon's neck spikes.

"Everyone holding on tightly?" the dragon asked, and after receiving confirmation he spread his wings and more or less stepped out of the campsite, catching wind with one lazy beat of his wings. Ginny had ridden Harry before, of course, but it hadn't yet stopped amazing her how easily he flew. For normal dragon it would've made sense, of course, but Harry had been human. And yet, the way he moved his wings and body along the wind, how with littlest movement of his tail he could change the direction… it was almost beautiful.

But then, even as human Harry had always seemed more fluent in the air than on the ground. Thinking back to the times when they had still had the chance to play Quidditch, Ginny remembered the awkward gangly teenager Harry had been on foot - and the soaring creature he had been on a broom. She hadn't really understood or appreciated the whole thing back then, but thinking back to it now…

She shook the thought of her head and gripped the spikes a little tighter as Harry turned in the air and aimed for north where the mountains got bigger and rougher, with mountain rivers flowing in the rocky valleys between them. Harry glided lazily over and around few of them, flying in few brief moments over several miles, before turning in one especially rocky valley and landing on a ledge just above the valley.

"There," the dragon said, nodding ahead where there was an odd breach in the rocky face of the mountain, leading into a dark cave. It was much bigger than Ginny had assumed - but then it would have to be, for Harry to fit in. "It might be a bit breezy, though."

"Probably no more than our previous campsite," Hermione chuckled, patting Harry's neck absently before turning to slide down along his neck. "Let's have a look then."

"My hand to steady your feet?" Luna offered and with a nod Ginny accepted her support in order to get down as well.

The spot wasn't that high, she mused whilst looking around. She had expected it to be much higher, actually, but she could see why Harry thought they'd have troubles getting down from there on foot. The terrain was rough and very uneven - not at all fit for walking. There would really be no way to get out of the place, without Harry's aid.

"Well, it's big," Hermione's voice came from the cave's mouth, echoing a little. "It would be warm too, if you were inside, Harry. Your body works like great big radiator, so we wouldn't even need to have a fire to manage here on cold days."

"I'm glad you appreciate me, Hermione," the dragon hummed, following her inside with curious Luna and limping Ginny following behind him. Inside the cave was rough and uneven, and about half as big as the Hogwarts Great Hall. It wasn't as comfortable looking though, having walls that were leaning in above them like they were about to collapse, and the floor covered with rocky debris. It was however dry and not even nearly as windy as it had been outside.

"It looks better than the place we're staying now," Ginny said frankly while looking around. "If we get the rocks out of the way, it might even be pleasant."

"Yes, I agree. We would have to make torches to get light but for now this place does seems much better," Hermione agreed, folding her arms. She glanced at the dragon. "We would have to rely on you to get water as well as food, though."

"That's alright. It's not like I have much to do in any case," Harry answered while swiping his talons over the cave floor and swiping away some of the rocks as easily as if they were just paper trash. "Might be quickest if I try and clean this place up," he added thoughtfully.

"Yeah, probably," Hermione agreed and looked around. "I say that we stay here. What do you think?" she asked, turning to Ginny and Luna.

"A roof to block the rain and shelter from the wind," Luna mused and nodded.

Ginny snorted, leaning to the cave wall. "I'm all for it," she said. "It'll make it harder to keep my leg clean without a stream near by, but yeah, this is much better."

"It's decided then," the short haired brunette nodded and looked around again. "Alright then. Let's start cleaning this place up."

And so they got to work. Well, Harry did most of the work, pushing the rocks and stone shards out of the cave and down the cliffs. He also of course got the fire wood and gathered them some branches so that they could use the leaves to make sort of beds for themselves. In the end, though, there wasn't much they could do with what little they had, and the cave remained rough and very cave-like by the end of the day. It was a bit cosier than just open spot on mountainside however - and when Harry was inside it was definitely warmer.

"This isn't bad," Hermione mused as they settled down in the evening beside a small camp fire, with Harry taking larger part of the cave with his massive bulk. "It's no house, but it shouldn't be that difficult to live here for few months. With Harry bringing us food and warming this place up, we should be able to handle winter here too, if it gets to that."

"If it gets to that?" Ginny asked suspiciously. "Just how long do you think we're going to stay here?"

The short haired woman smiled grimly. "For as long as we have to," she said and then chuckled. "We're not in hurry anywhere, are we?"

Ginny considered that for a moment and then chuckled. "No, I guess not," she admitted. They had tens of thousands of years in their hands, after all. It wasn't like they had people waiting for them. With that thought, she leaned back and decided to stop worrying about how long they they'd stay in the past. They had the time, after all. In more ways than one.

"Time at last, and rest thorough the night, and dragon's fire's warm comfort," Luna sung, breaking into a yawn and a stretch. "Closed up skies, and dreams of wind and clouds - and flights so long and so short."

Ginny glanced at the blonde woman, as Luna got to her feet and walked up to Harry, to curl up to sleep on his forearm like she usually did. Even after all the days, she couldn't figure out where Luna got her odd singing spells. She was getting a little better at deciphering the gibberish, but the little songs tended to come from nowhere.

"I've almost gotten used to her now," Hermione mused at her side.

"Yeah," Ginny agreed with a smile. "Almost."

The cave turned out to be a very good idea. The rain that started that night lasted almost for a full week, going from weak, misty trickle to downright outpour at times. Aside from Harry, who seemed to enjoy the coolness of the rain and liked flying in it, they stayed inside most of the time, and though it was cool and a bit uncomfortable, it wasn't actually unpleasant. The times indoors were spent mostly in silence, Ginny working with the latest deer hide whilst Luna worked with the herbs she had gathered and Hermione kept at her calculations, now writing them to the cave walls with a piece of charcoal.

"I think this might take a little bit longer than I assumed," Hermione said one rainy day while using a wet piece of cloth to clean up part of her calculations. "I think I managed to figure out a way to make the spell accurate to three hundred years or so, but I'm still having some problems. Main one being us."

"Us?" Ginny asked, frowning.

"Yes, us. When we originally started making the spell, the consensus was that we would need seven people to cast it, or in the least six and the anchor," the brunette answered, scratching her short hair absently. "And even then we were pretty sure it would kill the anchor. It took us months to modify the spell so that three magicians was enough - and that made it all the move violent. Now that we're going _forward_ in time, which is whole lot more difficult… I keep running in the same problem we originally had." She sighed heavily. "I could maybe do it with seven wizards. But… but we don't have them."

"But you _can_ do it, right?" Ginny asked worriedly.

"I haven't given up hope, but I think it might take me a while longer. Maybe even a year," Hermione answered.

"In the source of the sands of time, time matters not," Luna said from where she was using a flat rock and a roughly round shaped one to grind some herbs. "It is the sand we should be wary of," she added, glancing up with a mild frown.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked while Ginny tried to translate the Luna-speak in her head.

Luna didn't answer, but she didn't need to. That moment they could hear a loud screeching wail coming from outside, the sound familiar in general and so much like Harry's calls, but not quite. The pitch was off, too high and not deep and rumbling like Harry's dragon cries were.

Surprised silence followed the call as the women stared at the mouth of the cave with confusion. When the cry called out again, rising and lowering like some sort of siren, they all jumped to their feet and rushed to the cave mouth, to see. Outside the rain had thinned again and was showering the rock valley with what looked like mist, and through it they could see an enormous dark shape circling in the air above the valley. It wasn't black like Harry, nor did it have his shape, the wings were different and instead of the familiar arrow ended tail, this one had spikes in it. But what drove the difference in was the colour - even in distance it was more green than black.

It was oddly bewildering to see a dragon after so long living with one like Harry. It took Ginny a moment to remember that dragons in general weren't as well behaved as Harry was, or as intelligent. After that it didn't take more than half a second for her to remember some half-forgotten tales she had heard from her brother, horror tales of what happened to tamers around wild, enraged dragons.

"I think we should go inside before it sees us," she said, glancing at the others. Hermione seemed frozen by same confusion that had gripped Ginny, but Luna was perfectly relaxed - and maybe that was worse than being frozen. Luna had been the one who had reached out to pet a growling dragon, after all.

"It's smaller than Harry," Hermione murmured thoughtfully.

"It's still way bigger than us - and Harry's not here," Ginny said and pushed at the elder woman's shoulder, reaching out to grab Luna's arm in order to drag the pair of them inside.

But it was too late. Above them the dragon let out a shrill sound at the sight of them, and ducked into a dive, aiming for the cave mouth. Cursing, Ginny turned and dragged the others inside - a foolish, useless escape. The cave was big enough for _Harry_ so a smaller dragon would have no troubles getting inside.

"To the back, to the back," she hissed to the others as Hermione finally snapped out and even Luna realised the danger they were in. As they rushed towards the back of the cave, where it got tighter and more crowded, they could hear the dragon landing at the cave's mouth, the ground shuddering slightly under its weight. What followed as probably one of the most terrifying sounds Ginny had heard in a while - sound of dragon's claws scratching against rock as it followed them inside.

It wasn't at all like Harry, the redhead noted almost absently while she at the others pushed as far back in the tighter spot of the cave. Harry was, as dragons went, rather easy on the eyes with evenly jet black scales and the mane of spikes and horns that adorned his head. This dragon, on other had, was speckled with varying shades of green from murky dark green of its back, to the lighter mustard green at its belly. It had no horns like Harry did, but it had a sort of bone ruff around it's jaw - jaw which seemed to come off it's hinges as the dragon opened it's mouth to roar at them.

The roar, as loud and powerful as it was, wasn't as frightening as what it did next was. Scampering closer and knocking Luna's herbs all across the floor, it reached its front leg towards them, talons reaching into the niche they were pressed against. And thought the green dragon's claws weren't nowhere near as magnificent as Harry's, they were still big and more than a little dangerous, each and every one of them long enough to go right through a human's body.

Just as Ginny got ready to face a quick and brutal death, Hermione ducked out from behind her and ran past the dragon's claw towards the fire, surprising both it and the other women. The redhead had no time to muse whether or not the brunette had lost her senses, as the dragon withdrew its claws quickly in order to follow Hermione and snatch her up. Before it could, though, Hermione grabbed long piece of wood from the fire, and waved it violently at the dragon.

It seemed like utterly, completely idiotic thing to do at first - it was a _dragon_, why in name of Merlin's testicles would it be afraid of _fire_? But against all odds the dragon did back away a little, roaring at Hermione immediately after but still withdrawing further away from another wave that showered the air with smoke and fiery sparks.

Ginny, not about to disregard the good luck, limped forward as well and took another log from the fire to help her friend. However, though the fire seemed to keep the dragon at bay, it wasn't making it leave, and though Ginny was no dragon expert she could tell why not. The dragon was skinny, with almost hollowed sides and sharply protruding bones. It must've been starving for a while, and was probably not all that inclined to leave now that it had found food.

"We need to drive it back somehow!" Hermione yelled, waving the log again and thrusting it threateningly at the dragon, which hissed and snarled at her in return. The dragon then pushed a little forward, shifting his wings and opening them halfway like trying to scare them with it's size.

"I don't think it's feeling like going," Ginny answered, waving her log once more and accidentally landing her weight on her bad leg. The pain caught her off guard and she had to drop the log in order to catch herself as she fell, her knee throbbing with pain. The green dragon immediately tried to seize this opportunity and attack, but it was just barely fended off by Hermione who stepped into its way, waving her log.

"Sorry, sorry!" Ginny gasped, trying to reach for the log only to find it was out of reach. The dragon seemed to figure that one source of fire was easier to fight than two of them and started pushing closer, snarling when Hermione waved her log but not backing out.

"Shit! Ginny, back away, quick," Hermione cried, apparently intending to fend the dragon off herself, only to stop when something bright red flew past her and Ginny. Embers suddenly rained on the dragon, landing on its side and left wing, making it screech in pain and hurriedly jump back, shaking its wing to get the embers off.

Looking over her shoulder, Ginny saw Luna standing by the fire with thick stick in her hand. Without pausing, the blonde woman dug the stick into the remains of the fire and then batted more of the red hot embers at the dragon, making it back away even more. "Good going, Luna!" Ginny called gratefully.

But still, though the dragon seemed more willing to keep its distance, it still wasn't leaving. And to make matters worse, the fire was going out from the log Hermione was wielding. "We won't be able to keep this up for long," the brunette said, cursing. "Let's try and corner it to the back. I'll keep it off while you go outside. If you hide by the rocks, it might not see you once -"

"Once it's through with you? Don't be an idiot!" Ginny snarled while hurriedly struggling to her feet. "If you die, we're _stuck_ here!"

"At least you'll be alive!" the elder woman answered, when the argument was abruptly and efficiently taken from their hands.

Harry ducked into the cave and before the smaller dragon even noticed him he grabbed the other dragon by the tail, and dragged him out and to the rain. It happened so fast that it took the women a moment to realise it _had_ happened. Then they were all hurrying to the cave mouth to see what would happen, to make sure Harry would come out okay.

But the small dragon had no chance. Harry was several times bigger than it was and much, much heavier. The little dragon seemed to realise it too, as it tried to escape from Harry's hold only to have the bigger dragon _slam _his talons down to the other dragon's back and pin him to the ground. It was like watching a terrier going up against a Cerberus, sans the multiple heads.

"You three okay?" the black dragon asked, snarling at the little one. Realising its fate, the green dragon grew completely still, making small whining noises under the hold of Harry's talons.

"Rattled, but in one piece," Hermione answered while Ginny leaned against the cave wall, feeling faint. "You have perfect timing, Harry."

Harry opened his mouth to answer, before stopping and growing still as a new cry echoed through the air. He and the women turned to look, and Ginny felt all blood drain from her face as she her eyes landed onto another dragon circling above the valley - and not just a small one. But what made her pale wasn't just the dragon, but fact that there was another flying at its side - and then, to make the matters worse, more flew into view from behind the mountains and ducking down from the low hanging clouds.

"Oh… fuck," she whispered.

In few short moments the valley was filled with dragons.

x

I hope this chapter clears some things up. It's hard to answer comment questions without giving away the plot of this story. My apologies for possible grammar errors and such, once more.


	4. Wind and fire

**IV chapter**

**Wind and fire**

Luna's eyes were blurry with the beat of dozens of wings and future they stirred about them, forcing her to close them for a moment. She had grown so accustomed to not seeing so much, in the last days. Future whirled around Harry and Hermione and Ginny all the time, but nothing like it did in the days of future long past and ahead, where she had been forced to watch people and see, and see and _see_. Having had that relief for a while, seeing so many beings and so many futures almost knocked the breath out of her and made her head pound.

"Go inside," she could hear Harry saying, growling from between his teeth. "Inside, all of you. _Now_."

She couldn't at first figure what he meant, her mind was too blown by the whirling of sky and clouds - and so, so many wings beating now and then and in times to come. It stopped for a moment when hands grabbed her arms and started dragging her back and into the cave, but only for a moment before it was overtaken by black, bigger wings, and Harry's screams and -

"Fiery skies black and blue and bright, bright red," she whispered, eyes opening and staring at the battle blindly through the cave's rough walls. She drew a breath and tried to bat the images away - of a black dragon breathing fire and roaring and keeping back the many, many others, flying up and down and across, fast and swift and deathly - crashing down into the pond in the bottom of the valley, with another screaming beast in his claws.

"This is bad, this is very, very bad," Ginny was whispering at her side. "Do you think he can do it? _Damn it,_ there were so many of them!"

"And many, many more, wings beating, soaring," Luna whispered, her sight moving further from the battle, to the futures, to the possibilities - to the could-bes. So many dragons…

"H-Harry is bigger than any of them, I think," Hermione answered somewhere in the distance and coughed. "He is stronger, and at least the green one couldn't breathe fire. If it's not the only one that can't, he might have a chance…"

Luna closed her eyes as the words faded away, into the sound of wings beating. Outside she could feel, almost see, the dragons battling, as if the cave didn't exist and she was there, hovering in the air beside Harry. So much roaring and flustering as the dragons ducked and dived close to the bigger black one, trying to scare him and threaten him. But Harry was motivated by much more than they were - they stood in defence of their territory, in search for food. He was the shield between the monsters and his friends.

It was bewildering, even more so than the horrors she had _seen_ in the future and the blank emptiness of human touch in the times here. Ducking and diving and weaving through the air, the dragons flew left and right, chasing Harry and in turn getting chased. One of them reached out, trying to bite, to claw, only to get pushed back by a tongue of flame and angry roar. Harry was in his element, and Luna was in the air beneath his wings, feeling every beat. He was magnificent, and she felt like rag doll in its wake.

Hermione and Ginny were talking, but Luna was deaf to it as one of the dragons, largest of them next to Harry, finally pushed forward. The leader of the group, a great one more bronze than green like the others, not quite as big as Harry but large nonetheless. Luna could feel its anger and anxiety - seeing dragon as big as Harry in its territory did not make it happy - but the dragon was also afraid. It could not breathe fire like Harry had done to push back several of the dragons, even forcing one of them to land to lick its wounds. None of the dragons could that. Harry was something new for them. New and dangerous.

The bronze one hesitated, posturing and spreading its wings wide, trying to be bigger than it really was. But Harry wasn't one to be intimidated by size, and took the challenge as it was served. The other dragons hurriedly flew away, leaving Luna numbed for a moment by their absence, before the rage of the two dragons washed over her as they clashed in the air. The bronze dragon was vicious, desperate, trying to bite and claw and use every trick it knew to win. It was resolute.

But Harry wasn't like it. It was a natural dragon, evolved to handle natural dangers. Harry was a dragon _designed_ by a brilliant madman.

The fight did not last long. Though the bronze dragon managed to claw Harry's wings and make him roar with pain, Harry overcame it quickly, and in anger lashed out with fire, blinding the other dragon for a moment. It was all he needed to bite down to the bronze dragon's neck and then, by using all of his weight, force the bronze dragon down. Whilst the other dragons watched anxiously from the side, their leader went down like rock under Harry's bulk, unable to stop it no matter how it flapped its wings. The water exploded all around the valley as the pair of them crashed down and through the surface, Harry pinning the bronze dragon under the water and -

Luna gasped and forced her eyes, her sight, her very mind away from the scene, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes and moaning. It did not stop her from feeling the dragon's slow death as it choked and then, when the need for air got too great, inhaled and drowned under Harry's merciless weight.

"Gone, all gone," she whispered, rocking back and forth and trying to rid herself from the feel of the dragon's death - and the abrupt halt to the futures blooming around it. The eggs it would've sired were gone, the mates it would've had were now another dragon's; a whole dragon lineage wiped away. "Break their wings and cast the dragonets to the fire - under his hand a dragon and his kin fade away."

"Luna? Luna?" Hermione was shaking her, when she came out of it. "Snap out of it!"

She did, her eyes bleary and her head pounding. "They are his now," she said, gasping as the future shifted - shifted, changed, morphed. "They are all his now."

Outside, the dragons were silent.

x

"Well," Hermione said a little awkwardly while Luna applied a new layer of salve to Harry's wounds, covering the bite marks with the green paste. "At least they're not trying to eat us or anything."

Luna glanced up whilst Ginny snorted in amusement. The other women were looking outside of the cave and at the dragons that had settled themselves down around the valley. Few of them were sleeping whilst others were squabbling over some piece of meat one of them had - some of them were circling the pond in the bottom of the valley, where their former leader still lay, dead.

"I would prefer that they'd just leave," the dark dragon answered a little awkwardly, never taking his eyes off the other dragons. Not one of them had made a move to attack Harry or the women since he had killed the bronze one, and after Luna had explained it the best she could, the others had understood why. Harry had killed the strongest of them - which made him the strongest the dragons knew. And weaker dragons were always subservient to the stronger ones. "I wasn't trying to become their leader," Harry murmured, sighing.

"Well, I prefer they don't try to kill us," Ginny answered, laughing a little helplessly. "And as long as they consider you their alpha male or whatever they see you as, they won't."

"But it would be easier on us if they would leave. If they stay…" Hermione trailed away with a frown. "Like this we would have to stay with Harry at all times - if one of us was left behind without Harry here, well… it probably wouldn't be too safe. And I can't concentrate onto my calculations like that." She sighed and glanced at the others. "I think we might need to find a new place to stay."

Luna shook her head, knowing it wouldn't work. "Theirs are the skies and the winds, not the ground beneath them," she said. "Theirs are the air currents and the clouds and the freedom of a nomad. And theirs is his leadership."

"And if we up and leave, they'll just follow us?" Ginny asked with a grimace. "Brilliant, just brilliant." She shook her head and glanced up to Harry who was quietly growling at one of the dragons, who was trying to reach into the water to try and bite into the dead bronze dragon. "Maybe Harry should just… I mean, he is bigger and stronger. And they won't be any threat if he kills them. Hey, maybe you wouldn't even need to kill them all - just enough to scare the rest of them away."

"No," Hermione snapped resolutely. "Absolutely not. It's okay if it's a deer or something that we really need, that I can accept. But killing dragons? Who knows what kind of effect that could have on history. Look at them, these could very well be the first of the Welsh Greens or Hebridean Blacks, or maybe some breed that eventually evolved into some other. If we kill these, we might wipe out entire breeds of dragons! Who knows what we've already done, by killing that big one!" she shook her head. "No more killing dragons."

"I wouldn't want to kill any more of them anyway. It doesn't feel right, now that they aren't trying to fight me," Harry mused, wincing a little and glancing down to where Luna was finishing the process of applying the salve. "It's nice to have some first aid, for once," he said as Luna stepped back, and nudged the wounded area of his foreleg with his snout.

"No prodding," Luna snapped, slapping his cheek soundly, gaining a slightly guilty look from the beast. She scoffed at him and then pressed a kiss against the black scales. "Leave it be."

Ginny sighed. "Well, if we can't run away from them, and we can't kill them… can we chase them away?"

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, glancing at Harry and then at Luna. "What do you think?"

"Display of strength only furthers subservience," the blonde woman shrugged. "Cruelty as well. Indifference to give away to independence, but a pack-animal is a pack-animal. Craving for companionship - and guidance."

"And Harry is the strongest and now they all look up to him," Hermione sighed, running her hand over her short hair. "This is tough."

There was moment of silence as they pondered on the problem. Leaning to Harry's side and enjoying the heat he radiated, Luna sighed, allowing her eyes and her sight wander over the dragons. So many futures, so many possibilities. "Hunger," she murmured, seeing in them and into their past and feeling what they felt, for a moment. Many of them were in pain. "Starvation even. Bronze one did not lead them kindly."

"Hmm," Harry hummed in agreement, glancing at the body in the pond. "He was fat while all the rest are skinny and thin. Probably kept most of the food to himself, let the others go on his scraps," he agreed, and by the sound of it he wasn't pleased. "They're so hungry, they'll probably try eating _him_ soon," he added, nodding at the pond where more dragons were sitting at the shoreline, looking up to him as if waiting for permission to attack the corpse.

"The green one braved pain and torment to get to us," Luna mused, and glanced up to the dragon she was leaning against. Harry looked worried and behind him whirled possibilities, hanging on his decisions, his emotions. Incredible, overwhelming futures.

"Do you think you could stop them from eating the one you killed?" Ginny asked, leaning carefully out of the cave to see past the ledge and into the pond as well. "We could use that hide of his. If nothing else, I'd like his wings. If we're going to stay here for a while, dragon hide coats could come in handy."

"Hm. I hadn't thought of that," Harry mused, and then roared down at the dragons in the bottom of the valley, making them back away immediately - few of them even scampered up the valley's side and jumped to their wings. Flexing his wounded front leg gingerly, he stood up. "I'll bring him up here and you can get whatever parts of him you want. I'll let the little dragons have him afterwards."

"I didn't know dragons eat their own," Hermione mused as Harry jumped to his wings, roaring his warming at the other dragons before diving into the bottom of the valley. "Nasty business."

"They are very, very hungry, hurting and aching in starvation," Luna said, and glanced at the other women. "Cared for properly, they wouldn't care for humans," she offered carefully. "We are fire and brimstone and too much trouble."

Hermione narrowed her eyes and glanced at Ginny who seemed be thinking about it as well. "Well…" the brunette said after moment. "I don't like it, but if there's no other way Harry probably could manage them. He's too big for any of them to challenge in any case. I guess the only problem would be the food."

"Yeah. Feeding a flock of dragons is no small task," Ginny snorted and peered at the valley. "How many of them are there anyway? Dozen? Two dozen?"

"I've counted twenty so far," Hermione answered worriedly. "But they're not all that big. Maybe they don't eat as much as Harry does."

Luna pursed her lips. Harry wasn't eating enough as it was - he only ate a deer once a week and that was nowhere near enough for a beast of his size. Of course, after long slow starvation in captivity his stomach wasn't adjusted for the amount he should be taking, but it was something that should be changed. Especially now.

After moment of silence, Hermione sighed. "We'll let him decide. If Harry thinks he could manage them, then… it's probably safest he does. But regardless, these aren't tame dragons and they won't hesitate to snatch us up if they can. So let's keep our eyes open for a different cave - one that is too small for any dragons to enter. Either that, or we need to do some work on this one and make ourselves a safer corner in it."

"Hear, hear," Ginny agreed, before pulling out her meticulously sharpened stone knife, and standing up as Harry slowly, clumsily lifted the dragon's body from the water.

x

Harry did end up taking the position of the leader of the dragon flock, and Luna could tell before he even tried that he would be good at it. It was in the futures and in the possibilities, as well as in the way Harry just was. It was what it was, it was what he had always been, and not even transformations would change that. Dragon instincts only made him better at it, it seemed, as he snapped the dragons into order with snarls and hisses and chased them away with roars.

But in the end it was Ginny who kept the dragons at bay. She took up the task of tanning the dragon hide very seriously, and process was a smelly one, much so than the tanning of deer hide was. Not to mention that with so much dragon hide to tan it was enough to make the whole valley stink. It was bad enough to make most of the dragons vacate the valley and not come within smelling distance - even Harry didn't want to stay close, though he remained in the valley most of the times.

Ginny was good at it, though, going about the process with determination and experience, despite the abundance of materials. It was enough to make Hermione ask her about where she had gotten the skill, as definitely wasn't in Hogwarts curriculum. "I learned it in the House," Ginny answered without looking up from her work. "There was a Death Eater who liked to keep trophies. He was especially fond of muggle skin and scalps. We did the tanning for him." Hermione looked like she wished she hadn't asked afterwards, and the matter was concluded with that.

Still, though the smell of the tanning created shield between them and the dragons, they still were cautious. Whenever Harry headed out to lead some of the dragons in hunt, the women remained in the cave, safely hidden behind a wall of boulders Harry had piled up in the back of the cave. The boulders formed a secure niche that only a dragon of Harry's size could break and only a dragonet was small enough to fit into. It was rough, and awkward, but it was as safe as they could manage.

The dragons didn't try get into the cave, though, not even once. Who knew whether it was because of the smell or because it was Harry's cave, but they kept their distance carefully and didn't even try to make the attempt, as far as anyone could see, even Luna herself.

"Possessions of a mightier force," she mused to Hermione and Ginny when they wondered about it. "Not theirs to touch or take."

In the end, Harry didn't have to even exercise power all that much. The worse he had to do was to stop fights from going too dangerous between the dragons when one of them had food that the others wanted, and even that lessened over the days after he showed them that he wouldn't break their necks if they went out and got food for themselves.

"They still try to bring their catch to me," he said some week and half after taking over the dragon flock's leadership. "I think that might be the way dragons usually do."

"From what I remember about what Charlie did, it's part of their hierarchy," Ginny mused while tying the dragon hide into frames for stretching. "And sometimes I think the big dragons eat the little ones if they get hungry, so…"

"And to have his strength and his might," Luna added. "When another flock's wings flutter at the edges of their territory in challenge."

There didn't seem to be other flocks around, though, at least nowhere near enough to pose a threat. Harry's twenty one dragons - plus one clutch of eggs that they had found one female brooding over - had most of the mountains to themselves. The bronze one might've not been a kind leader to his group, but he had known how to manage a territory. That was a good thing, they found as the time went on, as the mountains only barely had enough food to feed all the dragons.

"They might be the reason why there are no human settlements here," Hermione said thoughtfully, as the weeks turned to months. "The dragons must've kept the mountains to themselves for long enough for what ever people there might live here in this time to start avoiding them."

"Probably yes. I haven't even found any old signs of settlements," Harry agreed, and then sighed. "It might've been mistake to get them all to hunt, though," he mused. "Sure, most of them can manage no more than a whole deer's worth in a week, but some of them eat a pair in that time. At this rate they'll clean up these mountains pretty quickly, and then they'll end up starving all over again."

"And then they will leave these territories and look for new ones," Hermione said while chewing on the roasted piece of wild boar they had for dinner that night. Absently she took a stick from the side of the camp fire, and used it to sketch some numbers to the ground. "Hopefully there are no human settlements near by at all. I wouldn't like these beasts to some day hunt humans because we got them used to eating more."

"Fire and brimstone," Luna shrugged her shoulders while peering over the ledge and down to where couple of dragons sat by the pond's water line, looking up to Harry who rested on the edge of the ledge. Both of the dragons were female, and both of them were crooning at Harry. And they hadn't been the only ones to do that along the last few days. "You have their admiration," she noted, to Harry's slight discomfort.

"Aww, Harry has fans again," Ginny laughed from the other side of the fire.

The dragon snorted, shaking his head and making his spines and horns rattle slightly. "They're like cats showing their affection to the one who feeds them. In more ways than one," he said rather dismissively. "They'll settle down once they get used to being content."

And in a way they did. They did settle down, to the valley cliffs and ledges, basking in the sun when ever it came out and huddling to themselves or next to each other when it rained. The longer they stayed, the further their character and behaviours firmed - not one of them questioned neither Harry's authority or his personal space, and the cave and the ledge were his and so were the women, in the minds of the dragons. Even when Luna ventured further and further from the cave in search of breathable air and solitude, not even the feistiest of the dragons bothered her. And when they caught Ginny by herself when she had to climb down to fetch a skin the wind had blown off, they cleared the way quickly enough - for some reason, the dragons were especially wary of her.

"We are but trinkets to them, now," Luna mused to herself, seeing the way the dragons saw them. The three women were no longer prey or meat or anything like that - they weren't even annoyance to the dragons. Instead they were like that piece of shiny rock the bronze one had carried with him and hoarded away. In some ways they were like eggs or dragonets, and Harry was the ferocious mother guarding them. In any case, they were nothing any other dragon but Harry could have, and thus they were to be left alone. Which was of course good for everyone.

But in one way, the dragons did get bolder as the time went by. One daring female, a grey one with a hint of yellow at the wings and only third of Harry's size, was the first to do it, to approach Harry as he rested and then settle down beside him. There she lay for a while, preening herself and looking smugly at the other females who hissed and snarled from the side. After that, it was a contest between them to get closer to their leader, who endured it with bafflement and exasperation.

"I don't mind it," he admitted when Hermione asked him later on. "It's getting cooler, and they don't have my endurance or body heat. I suppose they get cold." For him it probably seemed like natural answer - Harry did have body heat to spare, unlike the other dragons. Women knew it was even uncomfortable for him at times, like a high fever, which made him enjoy rain and seem more energetic as the air got colder.

But all of the dragons seeking Harry's presence and attention were female - and it wasn't just company they were looking for.

"It's a bit worrisome," Hermione murmured as they watched Harry lead a hunting party away one cool, windy morning. "Harry is a dragon now, sure, but he's not like they are."

"Yeah. He has human mind," Ginny agreed while leaning back and looking at the skin she had been trying to sew with a sigh. She had rushed to finish few of them more hastily as the air cooled, in order to make some thicker clothes for them in before the full force of the autumn would hit. But dragon hide was not easy to sew, by the looks of it. Or cut. "It's… kind of weird."

Luna said nothing to that, instead closing her eyes and letting her mind follow the dragons as they flew. Most in the flock were female - aside Harry there were only four other males and they were all young and small. The bronze one had driven the rest away when they had gotten older and bigger and started to show the signs of rebellion, which had left him as the biggest and the strongest until the flock had ran into Harry. It was the dragons' way here, apparently.

"Harry is a dragon," Luna said after a moment of silence, peering into the future. "As a dragon he shall remain until the end of his days." Shaking her head, she glanced at the others and pursed her lips. The others hadn't really accepted that. Oh, they saw Harry the way he was, they understood the changes, they accepted them - even appreciated them. But on the inside, they still saw him partially the way he had been.

Hermione sighed, catching her meaning. "True," she murmured, scratching her neck awkwardly.

"I guess… it would be a bit unfair for us to expect him to not, you know…" Ginny muttered, frowning. "It's still Merlin damned weird, but he _is_ a dragon. And so are they."

Luna glanced at the eldest of the three of them, and Hermione sighed. "Well. He hasn't shown any interest so far, so maybe he won't do anything about them. Might be that he impotent anyway - he's not a natural dragon after all and I doubt Voldemort designed him keeping breeding possibilities in mind," she said.

"Nothing really drives in the weirdness of your life like talking about the impotency of your dragon friend…" Ginny hummed in to herself whilst Luna let her mind stray away with the hunting dragons. "How's the spell coming along anyway?" she could hear the redhead asking somehow distantly, whilst the haphazard formation of dragons ducked down, most of them scaring couple of deer into a mad dash while the rest waited their chance to snatch them when they ran into the open.

"Slowly," Hermione sighed. "But I am getting there."

The autumn overcame the last of summer abruptly one morning, when they woke to find the stones covered in frost and slight layer of ice covering the pond below. After that, though it did not get so cold again for few weeks, the trees started turning abruptly from green to gold and the undergrowth dried up and died. It made them glad that Ginny had finally figured out how to work the dragon hide and managed to complete the first warm coat that could easily fend back the ever cooling air. Luna ended up being the one wearing it the most, as she had to ride out on Harry's back and hurriedly find as much herbs and such as possible. They would no doubt need them to make medicine and spice the food and so forth as the winter would set in.

Thorough the autumn, the female dragons still tried to court Harry with little success. He didn't rebuke their advances and even let them all huddle around him in the coldest days, sometimes going as far as to wrap his wings over them. But for a long while he showed no interest in them either. However, the colder it got, the less lethargic Harry seemed. It wasn't his energy and strength that seemed to improve, but he also got more adventurous and inventive - he even taught some of the smaller dragons how to catch fish.

And then, finally, Luna started catching him giving thoughtful glances at the female dragons. He never said anything, and when he was caught at it he seemed faintly embarrassed, but it was there. Hermione and Ginny noticed too, but they had come to the conclusion that it would be wrong to expect Harry to not follow his instincts and instead chain him down to the level of humans.

"Not to mention that he probably has had little to enjoy about his life in last years anyway," Ginny mused quietly while leaning to the cave's wall and looking outside where Harry spread his wings to shelter one sickly dragon from the rain. "And, things being the way they are, he'll never have love like a human would. It's kind of depressing to think what it must be like, for him."

Hermione looked a little uncomfortable as she shrugged her shoulders and eyed the calculations that covered walls of the cave. "Well… I hope he enjoys himself," she muttered, shaking her head.

"You're not worried about him starting a whole new breed of dragons or something?" Ginny asked with a grin.

"I doubt he's even fertile - and if he is, the chances of him being compatible are pretty slim. He's the same breed as they are in the way a St. Bernard is same breed as a grey wolf," the brunette answered, shaking her head and going back to her work.

The autumn continued cold and bleak for what seemed like eternity, only made bearable by plenty of firewood and thick coats. On the coldest nights Harry would sleep in the cave with them to offer them his body heat, but the women were happy to find that the cave didn't get that cold as long as they kept the fire going thorough the night. However, when the trees had shed all their leaves and weather started to show the signs of frost, Harry started to sleep in the cave every night to keep it warm.

"I feel sorry for the others," he said, peering outside and watching how the dragons curled up to themselves and to each other to share their warmth. "But you're more important than they are. They've managed well enough before my help anyway."

And so the winter started, with falling of the first snow that covered the valley and it's dragons over night and wouldn't budge for months.

x

"I think I have it," Hermione's words seemed to come out of nowhere, making Luna glance over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't hearing the future. The snow that covered the valley dampened every sound except dragon roars, and the odd lack of echo made it rather unnerving at times - especially for Luna, who couldn't always trust her senses.

But it was the actual physical Hermione speaking, standing in the tightly stamped snow that covered the ledge in front of the cave, wrapped in her dragon hide coat. On her other side stood Ginny, who had been repairing the rough curtain they had made of deer hides to cover the cave's entrance, she too looking a bit taken back by the words.

"You… have it?" the redhead asked, as Luna looked up and left of them, and to the times ahead. It was changing and shifting like the words spoken had given it the permission. For months there had been only time and snow and waiting there, and more and more dragons. Now there was the upwards free fall of _time_ as it rushed forward - up and across and to the unknown tomorrow.

She closed her eyes. How long had they been in the past now? Months, she recalled a little hazily, remembering the summer and the autumn. It was impossible to tell how long exactly, at least for her as her grip on the _current_ time wasn't exactly sturdy these days, but it had been a while. Long enough for her to learn to know the futures of dragons and the turn of the earth and ages beneath her feet and ahead her, long enough for them to have established their lives, even. They had made clothes and beds and turned a cave into their home.

"Well, it's not completely finished yet, I want to go over the whole thing couple of times to make sure I have the wording right, but I have the rough spell," Hermione nodded, looking almost shy. "I'm… sorry it took me so long."

Ginny didn't seem to know what to say to that, and neither did Luna, really, not that anyone was expecting her answer anyway. She turned her eyes to the valley instead. Harry wasn't there - he was out hunting more nowadays, the winter the need for food greater and its acquisition harder. But there were couple of dragons present. A great, mostly green female that lay on Harry's usual perch and at her side a smaller slightly yellow tinted female, pressed against her side. Both of them too heavy to fly much.

"I, uh… wow," Ginny murmured finally. "I hate to say it, but I was starting to think it might never happen."

"Nice of you to trust me," Hermione laughed, but didn't seem insulted. She shook her head. "However, it won't be perfect. I am relatively certain that I can get us somewhere between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries, but I think that is the best I can do. However, if we can get close enough then I might get access to libraries - maybe even time travelling devices like time turners and then… well."

"Seventeenth and the twenty-first, huh? You sure we might not end up in the twenty-second?" Ginny asked frowning.

"We'll be aiming for the eighteenth century," Hermione answered with a chuckle. "That way I can be fairly sure we won't go too much forward at least. Once we get there, we see what time we end up and depending on the era… we will do what we can."

Luna said nothing while the other women contemplated this. She, almost, wished Hermione hadn't managed it. It was easy here, even with the dragons. In future there would be people and futures, so many futures, and important events taking place every moment, and whole planet turning and twisting under the thrall of human decisions, their peaces and their wars. For her, that was agony. It was hell. Here it wasn't like that at all; here the future was slow and distant thing, free of so much human influence.

But she would never say it. Because as much as future, no matter what era it would be, would no doubt hurt… she did not want to be left behind. And, of course, they needed her for the spell.

"It's weird. We've been waiting you to complete the spell forever, and I can't wrap my mind around that it's actually done," Ginny laughed after a while, sounding a little bewildered.

"Me neither, which is why I want to check it few times over," Hermione said, scratching her hair before pulling her hood up. "I told you ahead of time because, well… I have a feeling that breaking this to Harry won't be easy."

"Why?" Luna asked, confused as the other two fell silent.

Hermione and Ginny shared a confused look. "He seems happy here and now, with the dragons," Hermione said slowly. "It won't be like this for him in the future. Dragons have been kept in sanctuaries and reserves for almost as long as Hogwarts has been standing. Regardless of what time we end up, it will be… not like this. Not to mention that he seems pretty fond of the wild dragons here."

"Tis a fondness of impractical practicality and familiarity of shape, that of a need and amusement and endurance of a keeper and a guardian," Luna argued, shaking her head. "Similarity breeds empathy and fondness, yes, and pleasure of company, of course. But he is Harry."

"What?" Ginny asked confusedly.

"You don't think he minds leaving this behind?" Hermione asked, she too looking a little confused. Luna opened her mouth, then thought better of it and just shook her head. Saying anything more would probably just confuse the others, as they couldn't understand it in the level she did - and she couldn't get the words across right.

However, though the other two seemed suspicious they also seemed a bit mollified and less worried, and when returned from hunting, they managed to break the news down to him without much drama. Harry's overall lack of reaction in one way or the other seemed to shock them as he merely nodded his head and settled down to clean his jaws of fresh blood.

"You… don't mind?" Hermione asked worriedly.

"Why would I?" he asked. "That's what we've been waiting for months now, isn't it?"

"I mean, leaving the other dragons, you don't mind that we have to leave them?" she elaborated.

"Well, I suppose I do feel a sense of… duty to them, in a way, after looking after them for so long," Harry mused, looking over the other dragons. "But it's not like they're helpless, and we didn't come here exactly with the intention of me becoming a leader of a flock of wild dragons. After we're gone, another dragon will just take my place and they will probably continue the way they have before." He shuffled his wing, his draconian way of shrugging his shoulders.

"And… you're not afraid that it will be harder for you in the future? Dragons aren't exactly allowed to run around in the wild," Ginny asked.

"I doubt a dragon reserve will be any worse than Voldemort cage. And I've had these months of flying, so I have had the experience," he said, brushing his snout against his forearm and then licking it like a cat cleaning itself.

"No regrets," Luna said and smiled. "A dragon way."

He didn't dignify that with an answer. Hermione and Ginny shared a look, before Ginny shrugged her shoulders and Hermione straightened her back. "Very well then. I guess I ought to finish the spell and then we can go," she said.

"And I guess we need to start packing," Ginny mused, brushing her chin thoughtfully and then following Hermione to the cave with a slight limp. "We still have some extra dragon hide, we might want to pack that. Who knows, we might sell it in the future…"

Luna glanced after them and then looked up to the dragon, who was now licking his talons clean. "I don't see why they're so worried," the dragon murmured, leaning his head back to inspect a bit of skin that had caught on his talon. "Sure I like the other dragons well enough, but…" he trailed away while using his teeth to pull the skin bit off.

Luna smiled. "Human values and possessiveness and affection," she said, holding one hand out like holding something in it. "And those of a dragon," she said, holding the other hand, and weighing them against each other. "Which is which?"

"Hm," Harry answered with a sideways glance. "And you know, do you?" he asked, sounding a little amused.

Luna smiled brightly. "Time and sands of time will show them all," she said and clapped her hands together with finality.

x

Yeah, my plan got bit obvious towards the end, didn't it? I was worried it might seem a bit... iffy and maybe a bit squicky, but since it wasn't exactly detailed I figured it didn't warrant a warning.

Edit: announcement went and became invalid as I realised how cluttered a 26000 word chapter would get x3 So chapters shall continue about the same way as they have.

Now, what comes to the Temeraire aspect of the story, it will obviously begin in the next chapter. On Temeraire side, this story takes place during His Majesty's Dragon, the first book, and will have spoilers about that. I will probably write the whole story from Harry's and the girls' perspective so hopefully it will not be too confusing for those who haven't read Temeraire, but like I said, there will be spoilers. I don't know yet if the story will continue further than His Majesty's Dragon, I will warn if it does.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


	5. On wing

**V chapter**

**On wing**

It was really an odd feeling to be finished with the work, the calculations and the careful wording of the spell and find that it was ready to be tried. Hermione had always considered achievement something part of daily life, as it had came more or less easily for her ever since she had been young - of course, it had been a wholly different sort of achievement back then, but one that she had still grown almost accustomed to. Now, with hell and long periods of almost painful apathy, it was like a blow to the gut to find the work completed.

She ran her hand across her face as she leaned back to inspect the spell. Maybe it was the long years of meaningless menial labour, she mused. The work in the labour camps had always been one without reward or an end, and in it she had almost came to expect work to last an eternity and never end. Perhaps that was what struck her now - much like it had struck when they had originally finished the spell in its rough, flawed form. She was just too adjusted not to succeed, these days.

Shaking her head, as it wasn't really useful to dwell on that, she turned her eyes away from the words she had sketched to the cave wall and turned to Ginny and Luna instead. They were working with the leather together in hurry to finish a sort of ropes made from cut strips of the deer hide that had served as a protective flap at the cave's doorway. "If we're going to try the spell again, I want something to hold onto," Ginny had said determinately. "I don't want to risk another bloody freefall - Harry caught us last time, but it might be onetime thing."

The ropes they were making would be strung around Harry's neck, and they would hold what little possessions they had in a satchel. The women on other hand would be attached to the ropes with harnesses that would keep them safely secured even if Harry did not manage to keep them from falling. It was a good idea, one that Hermione herself hadn't even thought of. She had been unconscious during the last freefall, so she had almost forgotten that there had been one at all.

It was a little odd that though Hermione was the one who had been reduced to physical work after the war, it was Ginny who was the most practical of them. But then, in the house she had probably been forced to learn many things or be put aside - and possibly put to death.

"How are they coming?" Harry asked from there he was kindly blocking the now open doorway of the cave, and saving them from the cool, windy air outside.

"Almost finished. I just want to make sure that they're firm enough," Ginny answered, testing the strength of the thick leather bindings by pulling them sharply. "It's not perfect and wouldn't hold much weight, but with some luck it will be good enough to save our lives, if it comes to that."

"Best to make sure than rely on half-assed effort," Hermione nodded. She had been ready for a day now, as sure of the spell as she could without trying, but they had yet to go because the leatherwork took so much time. Without needles or proper yarn, Ginny and Luna had to poke holes through the leather with their stone knifes and then use sinews and such to sew it. Of course, most of the leather had been braided together instead of being sewn, but where the rope was re-attached they had to be sewn. Not to mention that the strips of leather were not long enough to reach even around the thinnest parts of Harry's legs, not to mention about his neck.

"Yeah. But I think this might do it," Ginny said, holding the leather robe out and examining it. "Still, I wouldn't risk my life solely on this, so Harry please, try and hold onto us, okay?"

"I wouldn't let you fall," the dragon promised while pushing further to the cave so that they could try putting the rope around his neck. While watching Ginny and Luna wrap the strap, Hermione felt a bang of regret. Ginny was still limping a little, though she no longer had to use a crutch or a cane, but what made her feel the guiltiest was Luna. Over the last months she had lost some of her paleness and no longer looked like she hadn't slept properly in years - or she _had_ anyway. Ever since Hermione had informed them that the spell was finished, though, she had started loosing sleep again.

"Times ahead are noisy," the pale blonde had said in way of explanation. "So many fates and futures and so much of sand in time for people to lose themselves in. So many currents."

But she hadn't complained or said anything more about the matter, so Hermione had let it rest. Still, it did make her feel a little sad for the younger woman. She hadn't even considered how much easier it was for Luna to be so far in the past, where things progressed at slower rate.

"I just need to bind these," Ginny murmured while starting to wrap the several bindings at the ends of the rope together, knotting them complicatedly before taking her knife and the last pieces of the sinews and starting to sew them for extra security. The strap was rough, but it was thick and pretty secure looping around Harry's neck, weaving through the spikes and staying firmly in place when Ginny tried it. "Is it too tight?"

"It's fine," Harry assured and with a nod Ginny turned to the satchels holding their possessions, to attack them to the bottom of the rope.

Then, it was done. All was left for the women to attach themselves and they were ready to go. This realisation followed by a short quiet, before Hermione snapped herself back to gear and straightened her back. "Well then," she said. "We should go outside. I wouldn't want to try the spell inside the cave - we might end up lodged in the stone for all I know."

They went outside, following Harry who looked over the valley with a thoughtful expression. The dragons were almost all there, except for the one female that was still brooding on her eggs and few others who were apparently hunting. The rest were resting around the valley sides, the smaller dragons laying around the bigger ones for warmth. It was such an odd and yet familiar scene for Hermione, as it had been like that for so long. It was odd to think that it would be the last they'd see of it.

Some of the dragons lifted their heads and looked at Harry expectantly, only to lower them when he made no sound at them. They watched in almost innocent silence as the women climbed to Harry's back and the black dragon lifted to his wings to take them to the highest point of the mountain, leaving the dragons behind. For them, it was yet another venture their leader made with his pet humans, Hermione mused. They had no idea it would be the last they'd see of Harry.

"I kind of feel sorry for them," she mused.

"They'll manage," Ginny answered while holding onto the spikes in the back of Harry's neck tightly as the dragon landed on the top of the mountain.

"Is this place good enough?" the dragon asked.

"It's fine," Hermione assured while sliding down from the dragon's back and glancing around them. "Alright. Let's strap ourselves and then… then we'll get to work."

"It's the same as the first try, right?" Ginny asked while handing out the harnesses to them and then wrapping her own around her.

"Yeah. Just put your hands onto Harry and the spell will do the rest," Hermione promised, tying hers on as well. It wasn't as secure as she might've liked, but it was better than being completely without. "Okay, how do we latch these things on?" she asked, holding the end of the harness and looking at the thick leather rope around Harry's neck.

"With the best knot you can manage," Ginny said awkwardly. "Without buckles or anything it's the best we can do."

So they did, testing the strength of the harness until they were relatively sure they were as tight as they could be. Hermione glanced at the other women to see Luna already leaning against Harry, pressing her palms to the dragon's scales. Ginny quickly did the same, and after getting a nod of approval from Harry himself, Hermione took a deep breath, and pressed her palms against the dragon's chest.

"Here we go," she murmured, and started the long, complicated incantation of the no doubt most important spell of her life.

Most painful one as well. She tried not to let it bother her and keep her voice steady as she spoke the long lines of the incantation, but from the few first words the weakness struck. Time travel was usually done by using the ambient magic in the air - or that of the time travel itself, as in passing from one time to another the traveller was swamped with great deal of magic that could be use to power a time piece such as Time Turner. But this was different. The spell had been made to work on human's power due to the necessity of it being possible inside a dampening field, and thus it was straining upon the castor.

And on the participants, Hermione knew, listening to Ginny's gasping and Luna's hitching breaths as the spell reached and gripped their magic for more power. But Hermione, as the castor, had the worst of it. She directed the spell, which took all of her concentration and strength to do. Keeping up with the incantation itself was only possible because in perfecting it she had learned it by heart.

The world seemed to fade away into the pain and drain of magic. The cool air vanished, the snow was gone. For a moment Hermione was only aware of Harry, Ginny and Luna, as if they were connected to her by invisible blood veins and part of her body. Then the whirl of time struck. The others would be blind and numb to it, she knew, and that was a blessing. But she remained conscious through the violent swarm of magic and felt the unravelling of the time completely. That was much more painful than the spell itself or its drain, and felt rather like being torn apart and put together forever in horrible, rapid succession.

When it ended sharply, the whirl fading into blank darkness, she was not surprised but only relieved.

x

Even before she awoke, Hermione could feel the headache that had came with the completion of the spell. She felt light headed and dull, and as she opened her eyes she couldn't completely comprehend what she saw up ahead. Even when the blurry shapes cleared themselves to Ginny who was trying her forehead and Harry whose head was bent to eye her, she didn't really see them as much as they were simply in the line of her vision.

"Headache?" Ginny asked with sympathy while taking a rag and placing it on Hermione's forehead. It was soaked through with blessedly cold water. "Just so that you know, the rope saved our lives. We were much closer to the ground this time; Harry would've never had the time to catch us if we weren't already fastened to him."

"Good to hear," Hermione groaned, closing her eyes for a moment and then steeling herself against the pounding of her head. She had felt worse, she reminded herself and forced herself up. Glance around the area confirmed that the spell had worked, at least to some extend. They were in a valley, though a much different from the one they had left. This valley was flat, wide, and covered with grass.

"I guess it worked," she murmured. "Is everyone alright?" she then asked, looking at Harry who seemed unharmed where he lay and then to Luna who was crouched next to a wad of grass, examining it closely. "No injuries this time, right?"

"We landed comfortably," Harry answered.

"Well, as comfortably as you can, hanging like a marionette at a dragon's side," Ginny murmured, rubbing her waist. "I'm going to have a ring of bruises around my belly, I bet."

Touching her own waist, which had been undressed of the harness, Hermione concluded that it would be pretty much the same for her. She shook her head, not really caring, and looked around instead. Ten thousand years previous the terrain had been rough and rocky and mountains had been sharper, wholly different from what they looked like now. But then, between then and now there had been a few ice ages that had shaped the area. "Now we just need to figure out when we are."

"Uh-huh," Ginny agreed, standing up. "Funny how both times we left in winter and arrived in summer. Or well, I think it's more spring here than summer," she said, peering around and up to the mountains surrounding them. They still had snow in their peaks. "I guess we have to wait until the night to tell the time, huh?"

"Unless we want to risk being seen," Hermione agreed, sighing. "Hopefully we're somewhere near where we ought to be. Well, at _least_ within the centuries I aimed for. That would make things much easier, and I can't think of a way to adjust the spell any further without some help."

"I think we can safely assume we're at least in times of civilisation," Ginny muttered and glanced at Luna who was holding a blade of grass and staring at it intently. "She had a great big fit about war and dying when we landed. Ever since snapping out of it she's been, well… kind of out of it."

"Ah," Hermione answered, frowning.

"She said that the time is searing her again," Harry added from above them, his horns and spikes rattling slightly with his unease. "There is more future here for her to feel."

Hermione said nothing to that, just gave Luna look of unguarded pity, wishing she could still believe that divination was punch of useless rubbish. Maybe if it was, Luna mightn't be so… broken by it. "Well… regardless of the way that assurance was delivered, I guess we should be relieved," she said after a moment. "Maybe if the time is right and magical healing is advanced enough, we might find some help for her, even."

Then they waited for the night to fall. Thankfully there were scarcely any clouds covering the sky and it was evening already so it wasn't a long wait - though the crisp coolness of the air made it a slightly uncomfortable one. However, while sitting on Harry even that didn't bother them as much, his high body temperature allowing them handle weather easily. They talked little, used to being quiet amongst themselves most of the time, as above them the sky turned dark and the stars started coming out.

Even before all the stars had started shining and they could see full dome of the night sky, Harry relaxed slightly under Hermione. "It looks more familiar," he explained when Ginny asked him about it. "It looked strange and a bit off before."

"Yes," Hermione murmured in agreement while taking in the star positions and calculating the paths they had taken over the years. Ginny had been right - it was spring, early April judging by positions of the planets. Calculating the year took a bit longer, but she could rule the twenty first century immediately, and the twentieth soon after, getting exited as she realised that they were within reasonable time. "I think we're in the beginning of the nineteenth century," she finally said, standing up on Harry's back in triumph, looking over the sky again. "Yes, yes! We are!" she confirmed.

"We did it? We did it!" Ginny answered and patted Harry's neck roughly in excitement. "Finally! Can you tell where we are?"

"Still in Scotland," Hermione answered with certainty. "In the Highlands, I think - or very near them."

Ginny nodded, looking up as well. "In Scotland in the eighteen hundreds, huh," she muttered. "That's bloody good news, but what will we do now that we're here? We can't very well go flying around with a dragon. Well, on other hand, if we did we would attract the attention of the Ministry and have them send Aurors and Obliviators…" she trailed away thoughtfully. "Hey, we should be somewhere near Hogwarts, right?"

"Hmm… maybe. We might be able to fly to Hogsmeade unnoticed if we're lucky," Hermione mused. "I wouldn't hold much hope for it, however. Though the mountains are rather scarcely populated, there still are Muggles around no doubt. And Harry is not exactly a small beast," she added, sitting back down on his back and patting his scales.

"It's a pity you can't Apparate," Harry murmured. "I could wait here while you went to London or where-ever, until the tamers would come. It would be easiest for all."

The frankly spoken words stopped Hermione's train of thought completely and made Ginny glance towards the dragon's large head with surprise. It seemed Harry had already submitted himself to the fate of being confined to a dragon reserve, despite his human intelligence.

"Maybe there will be another way," Hermione offered.

"I don't really mind," the dragon mused, his wings shifting in draconic shrug. "Of course, if you mean to go further along in time and need my help, then that's a different matter… but I can just as well stay in a reserve here as I could in the future, in case you use a time turner or something similar instead."

"But Harry. It's not like you're an animal," Ginny said. "Dragons are kept in reserves so that they won't hurt humans. No one is in danger of being hurt by you so you could just as well live anywhere else - out of the sight of Muggles, sure, but freely."

"Hmm… I suppose I wouldn't mind that either," the dragon agreed, glancing at her over his shoulder. "But that seems a bit too optimistic, don't you think?"

Ginny didn't seem to know what to say to that, and Hermione was stuck similarly silent. If her estimation of the time was right, the Ministry of Magic didn't yet even make a distinction between beasts and beings and instead classified anything not a wizard as a beast, regardless of their intelligence. And though the first steps to correct that would start within the century, it would take goblin rebellions for the Ministry to actually live up to the new ideals. And in their own times, well, things had started reclining again without there having ever been a true equality among beings.

"I don't mind it," Harry said as the silence stretched. "I don't really care that much for luxury and can do without human company - a dragon reserve will probably best equipped to handle my diet too. Just as long as it's not worse than what I experienced in the cage."

He stretched his wings massively before anyone could answer, and then settled himself down more comfortably, leaning slightly to the side and almost knocking the women on top of him off balance. "So, are we going to aim for Hogsmeade next?" he asked, leaning his head down and against the grass, yawning. "I will need directions. I've never actually sought the place out the magicless way."

"I can navigate," Hermione answered with a sigh, glancing at Ginny helplessly and wishing she had some other option to give to the dragon. In the past, though, she had given the matter very little thought, it had seemed so distant affair back then. Now, finding herself faced with a concept that Harry had accepted, it was oddly defeating, like losing a battle she hadn't known she was meant to be fighting.

"Well, let's not give up before we even know what we're up against," Ginny said after moment of quiet. "Things might turn out okay, before the end."

Abruptly, Luna laughed from where she was sitting on Harry's foreleg. "Better," she chuckled. "And so much worse."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, frowning as she tried to peer over Harry's shoulder at the younger woman.

"Kicked up the sands of time, kicked up, about and all around," the blonde girl sang, leaning her head back and looking up at her with an odd, upside-down look. Her eyes were oddly bright, and oddly wet, like she was trying not to cry. "Kicked them left and kicked them right, and what's kicked comes round." She laughed after her little melody and settled down again like marionette with strings cut. "This time is so chaotic," she whispered. "It's almost beautiful."

That, Hermione thought, did not sound at all comforting.

x

When morning came, they ate some of the meat Ginny had packed and then, after Harry had taken a long drink from a near by stream, they took off. It was a little more comfortable to sit on his back with the thick leather rope there - Ginny had suggested that they might want to latch themselves on again, for extra security and Hermione admitted that though it did not let them move around much and forced them to sit uncomfortably near to the thickest and sharpest spikes in Harry's neck, the safety measures were comforting. She hadn't still gotten used to flying, not really, and though Harry made it as enjoyable experience as probably possible, it always felt like she was inch away from falling to her death when ever she was on his back in the air.

She couldn't help but enjoy it a little more, however, at the sight of the other's reactions. Luna enjoyed the flying full heartedly like she always did, and was holding her arms up in the air to feel the wind fully. Ginny seemed to enjoy it too, letting out a wild laugh of joy when Harry titled to the side to catch some rising wind. "This is much nicer than flying in the winter," he redhead said, her messy braid whipping behind her. "Makes me miss Quidditch goggles, though.

"I wouldn't mind a pair myself," Hermione agreed. It wasn't so bad if she squinted, but the wind still blew at them at incredible speed. "I guess the wind doesn't really bother you, Harry?" she called to the dragon, not sure if he could hear her.

"No, not at all," he answered, glancing at them over his shoulder. "Do you want me to slow down? It's a bit more tiresome, though, and I doubt could be able to fly as long."

"No, it's okay. Just keep at it," Hermione answered and glanced around to make sure they were still going to the right way. It would've been easier to navigate in the night, by using the stars, but since Harry couldn't see that well in the night it couldn't be helped, so instead she glanced up to the sky, calculated the time and using the sun's position determined theirs. "You need to turn a little bit to northeast, Harry!" she called to the dragon.

He didn't answer, merely turned a little and continued on the new heading without a hitch. Hermione nodded with satisfaction, and then settled back to consider their options. She would've liked to keep their existence a secret and complete their mission without disturbing the history. Best thing to do would be to hide and somehow get funds for wands. Then they would spent some days, maybe weeks, laying low and re-familiarising themselves with magic - they had spells more advanced than wizards these days did, but they were all out of practice. But, once they would be certain of their success, they would break into the Ministry and to the Department of Mysteries to get a proper time piece. With that they would move ahead in the time line to the proper year, perhaps the year of Voldemort's birth or little before he was supposed to head to Hogwarts…

But she doubted it would be that easy. Keeping Harry a secret wouldn't be possible, not for long at least. The dragon was bigger than most dragon breeds in the future, and he needed to eat accordingly. And it wasn't as easy as snatching up a deer, nowadays. Maybe, if they had the money, they could've kept him hidden in the mountains and buy him cattle… but they didn't have the money and if they would've had, it would've been first used to get their wands…

And of course, there was the chance that they wouldn't be successful in breaking into the ministry at all. The security there was lax in the future, but it might be a wholly different thing now and they might fail, regardless of their more modern magic. And she was getting ahead of herself in any case - they didn't have the money for wands in any case, not unless they managed to sell the dragon hide they had and she doubted it was good enough quality for selling anyway.

Trying to remember who the Minister for Magic was currently, Hermione bit her lower lip and wondered what might happen if they were to show themselves. The laws and regulations about time travel shouldn't be as tightly firmed yet, as the worse incidents with time travel happened in the twentieth century… so maybe they could even explain their origins without worry of having broken current laws. But she wasn't willing to leave the chances of their mission succeeding or failing into the hands of people she didn't know and politics she probably didn't approve of. Ministry did not have a good track record in her mind.

Lying for all they were worth was probably all they could do. Dragon breeding was illegal, so they would have to play Harry off as an old, tamed dragon or maybe a potions accident gone wrong, which ever would suit the situation. It might end up with Harry being sent into a reserve like he was already thinking he would, but maybe they could at least forestall that. And themselves, they would have to maybe pretend to be home schooled witches, or something similar. If it got to that, Hermione could get a job to get them some funds.

In any case, the first thing they needed to do was to get to Hogsmeade. Harry could hide in the mountains surrounding Hogwarts while the women would go to Diagon Alley and take a look at the state of the magical world…

"Hermione, look!" Ginny snapped her out of her thoughts by shaking her shoulder rather roughly. "Look, over there! Is that what I think it is?"

Hermione blinked and then followed the other's pointing hand. It looked like a bird at first glance, and then she saw it more clearly and identified with the experience of watching a flock of dragons from afar for almost half a year. The creature was much too big to be anything but.

"Dragons," Harry said before Hermione could say it, surprising her with the plural at first. But then the creature got closer and she saw that no, it wasn't alone. There was a group of them, flying in a sort of wedge formation like a flock of birds would've. As Harry slowed down to watch the approaching dragons more closely, the women peered at them curiously and worriedly, until they were close enough to see their colours. A blue one led the formation, with pair of golden shaded dragons at its each side, and two more grey shaded dragons at either end. Five in total.

"What are the chances that just when we've left a flock of dragons behind us, we run into another one?" Hermione asked, sighing.

"I don't think that's just a flock," Harry answered lowly.

"It almost looks like they're wearing harnesses or something," Ginny said, sounding a little confused. "Harry, can you see that?"

"It's not just that they wear harnesses. I think they have people riding them," the dragon said and growled quietly under his breath while his neck spikes rattled - the sound more worried than anything else. "They're almost all as big as I am. And the one in the lead is much bigger," he said, and the words were definitely worried. "What should I do?"

Hermione hesitated, not sure at all. More dragons, with harnesses and people riding them? Maybe there had been a dragon taming program in these times she wasn't aware off? But surely it would've been in the books and Hagrid would've told about it back when they were in their first year and the half giant had the egg. Unless it was some sort of secret, maybe something like the projects of the department of mysteries?

In either case, keeping Harry a secret wouldn't happen now that they had no doubt been spotted. If the dragons were bigger than Harry then running away or fighting might not be an option either. She glanced around. "Harry, land over there, on the top of that mountain peak," she said. "Let's show we're not hostile, and maybe they'll land to talk with us. And if not, you should be able to take off quickly from there."

"Right," Harry said, and turned towards the peak in quick angle, gliding down and then finally landing onto the top of the peak.

"You think this is safe?" Ginny asked worriedly, while Luna peered up to the sky and to the approaching dragons wordlessly.

"No, but if they are bigger I don't want risk fighting them," Hermione said while patting Harry's neck, which had tensed in anticipation. "And without knowing how fast they are, running away won't be a good idea either. Let's just hope they're not here to pick a fight."

"Fight and battle and wing on wing," Luna murmured, unhooking her strap and standing up on Harry's shoulder, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked up. "Dragons over waters and lands and the fires of war…" she stopped, and shuddered. "Kicked up the sands of time, and kicked up comes round."

Hermione tried to not read too much into the words, though they certainly didn't console her at all as the dragon formation flew closer, and then over them, before turning and circling around. She tensed at the sight of them, and felt Harry shuddering as well. They were all as big as Harry, with the one in the lead being much bigger with its enormous, long wings. After having gotten used to the idea that Harry was a very large dragon, seeing dragons of the same size - and bigger - was unnerving.

But what worried her most were the harnesses they were wearing. From below it was easy to see the nets that covered their bellies, carrying supplies and people. It was hard to see how many there were, but on the largest dragon she counted some dozen people in the belly side alone, and there were definitely people in the topside as well. The dragons carried them with ease and apparently without much objection, like tame horses instead of the ferocious beasts they were supposed to be.

"They are waving flags," Harry said uncertainly, his horns rattling once more with his unease.

"Signal flags maybe," Hermione answered, she too feeling out of her depth. "Let's just wait and see. They haven't attacked us yet, so…"

The people on dragon back seemed to realise that they couldn't understand whatever they were signalling in a moment. There was some sort of consultation between them by using the flags and by shouts too distant to make out. Then, finally, one of the dragons ducked out of the formation, the others shifting into new form to cover the hole in their wedge shape. The dragon that left the formation, a golden hued one with stripe pattern and almost exactly as big as Harry was, ducked towards them and landed with great gust of wind not too far from Harry.

Now that it was closer, Hermione could see the full extend of the complicated harness it was wearing - and that it wasn't just a harness. It was a full battle gear with chain mesh and armoured plates and all. But she wasn't as worried about the battle gear the dragon was wearing, as she was about the bottle green uniforms of the people riding it wore underneath thick leather aviator coats. They were obviously military uniforms of the time period, complete with swords and rifles.

"Kicked up the sands of time," Luna had said, and Hermione was suddenly very sure that wasn't even the half of it.

Few men climbed down from the dragon's back, some staying at the dragon's feet with their riffles at hand while two stepped forward and walked closer to them. Hermione, realising that they intended to talk with them, quickly detached her safety straps from Harry's simple leather harness, and then slid down to the crook of Harry's foreleg and then down to the ground. The black dragon watched her process closely whilst Luna and Ginny followed her, but said nothing and merely rattled his spikes again.

The man walking in front stopped at respectable distance's away and eyed them with a frown. He was a middle aged man wearing an aviator's helmet with goggles lifted up from his eyes, and he did not look impressed with Hermione and the others as he spoke. "I am Captain Sutton on Messoria, a senior Captain of the His Majesty's Royal Aerial Corps," he said, motioning at the dragon behind him. "Please, identify yourself."

Hermione hesitated, glancing at the others. _His Majesty's Royal Aerial Corps_? She wondered with a sudden twinge of panic making her insides freeze. "My name is Hermione Granger," she finally said, figuring that lying to a man with a crew of soldiers and a tame dragon at his disposal was not a good idea. "These are Ginny Weasley, and Luna Lovegood," she said, motioning at the women at her either side while Luna leaned closer curiously and Ginny folded her arms to hide her unease. "And this is Harry," Hermione added a bit awkwardly, motioning at the dragon who had lowered his head to see Captain Sutton more closely.

The man and the one behind him relaxed slightly. "You're British," the man said, the cool formality of his tone easing. "Are you the Captain of… of Harry?" the man then asked, glancing up to the black dragon.

"Uh, Captain? No," Hermione answered a bit confusedly, glancing at the other women and then realising that among them she was most likely the only one - aside from Harry maybe - who had any idea how to deal with military. Wizards never really had had one. "We're not in any sort of service," she added then a bit awkwardly.

"He means to ask if you are partnered with Harry," the dragon Messoria behind the two men spoke, and Hermione barely managed to keep herself from gaping like an idiot. Not noticing her reaction, Messoria, who had a shockingly feminine voice for a dragon who was so badly scarred, turned to look at Harry. "Sutton is my Captain," she said with hint of threat in her voice.

"Oh," Harry answered with measure of confusion, and glanced down at Hermione who could only shrug a little helplessly in answer. Pushing back from his crouched position and sitting back to his haunches, Harry eyed the dragon with newfound curiosity. "What do you mean by partnered?" he then asked.

"I mean the one human that is yours," Messoria answered, now she too looking confused as she glanced down to Sutton who too seemed a little perplexed, though also oddly relieved as well.

"A familiar, a kindred of spirit," Luna answered, before the dragon could. "The one you couldn't live without, the one you'd die to save."

Harry's wings ruffled a little. "Like Sirius?" he asked unsurely, looking at Hermione.

"I don't think that is it," Hermione answered and shook her head, turning to Sutton who was looking at Luna with unconcealed mystification. "I'm sorry; we don't really know what you mean."

"I see," the man answered, sharing a look with the other man.

"How come the dragon, Harry, let's you ride him if he's not harnessed?" the man behind the Captain asked curiously.

"I don't see what a harness has to do with it, they can ride me without one just as well," Harry answered, and then hummed thoughtfully while looking at Messoria's complex gear. "Though I suppose that sort of get up would make flying safer. Is it heavy?"

"The full battle gear is a bit, but it's not really that taxing," the dragon answered. "There are lighter gears, of course, but you get used to the heavier ones too."

"Harry is a… friend," Hermione answered to Sutton's question, glancing between the dragons and feeling completely out of her depth.

"I see," Sutton said slowly, looking between the women and the dragon and then glancing at the man at his side. "Miss Granger, was it? I think you would do best to come with us to the Loch Laggan covert," he finally said. "There I would like you to tell us exactly how you came about to… meet Harry," he added, looking a bit awkward.

Hermione frowned, glancing at Ginny and Luna. Luna had a calm expression on her face, but Ginny was frowning slightly. "I suppose we have no choice," she murmured and Ginny glanced up to the dragons circling overhead with a sardonic expression. Hermione looked up to Harry again who too glanced above them awkwardly. The dragons had advantage of numbers and trying to fight them would no doubt only get Harry needlessly hurt.

"Very well," Hermione finally said, turning to the Captain. "I trust you can lead the way."

"Of course," Sutton answered with a crooked smile, looking between them and then up to Harry. "You will come willingly, I hope, without us having to take one of your… friends aboard my dragon?"

Harry looked down to him confusedly. "If the girls want to fly on Messoria, I wouldn't mind," he said, apparently not noticing the threat in the man's voice. "Her harness does looks safer than this thing," he added, nudging the strap around his neck with his front leg.

"Ah, we'll fly with you, if you don't mind," Hermione said quickly, not really wanting to get on an unknown dragon carrying a group of unknown soldiers.

"Very well," Captain Sutton said, shaking his head at them like not knowing what to think of them. "I'd like you to take off first," he then said, his voice more business-like now. "After that, fall behind the formation. Dulcia and Nitidus - the dragons in the back of the formation - will take your flanks."

"Sure," Harry said, shrugging his wings and laying down to make it easier for the women to climb on. Luna was quick about it and got on first, much more used to it since she flied with Harry the most. After one last glance at Sutton, Messoria and the dragons above, Hermione helped Ginny to Harry's forearm and then up his side.

"Well, this is a fun twist in events," Ginny murmured in low tone as they strapped themselves to the thick leather rope around Harry's neck.

"I have a feeling this isn't even the tip of the iceberg," Hermione muttered in answer and after they had fastened themselves on, she patted the side of Harry's neck to let him know they were ready. He shifted his weight to his hind legs and jumped, catching wing with two beats of his wings and then quickly rising towards the other dragons, who shifted the formation again to make room. Harry didn't fit it perfectly, Hermione noticed. Whilst the other dragons stayed perfectly in line he flew a little too fast even when he tried to slow himself down and his pace wasn't straight enough, making him bob up and down slightly with his wing beats.

The other dragons weren't just tame, but they were _trained_, Hermione mused, glancing at them. It almost reminded her of a formation of bombers. Thinking back to the way Sutton had introduced himself made Hermione suddenly worry that it was _exactly_ what they were.

"Harry, just out of curiosity," Ginny said suddenly as she watched how Messoria lifted from the ground as well to fly behind them, enclosing them inside a sort of diamond formed of dragons. "Just how many of those dragons did you bag, back in the valley?"

While Harry let out what could only be described as indignant, embarrassed sputter, Hermione glanced at the younger woman, and felt her mouth fall open. "Surely you don't think -"

"Talking dragons, Hermione," the redhead answered with a flat tone. "Talking _intelligent_ dragons."

Beside on Ginny's other side, Luna glanced at them amusedly. "Kicked up the sands of time," she said. It sounded rather like _I told you so_.

x

There we go, touchdown to the Temeraire reality.

Now, I will happily explain anything that people not familiar with Temeraire don't understand, but I can't exactly predict what you might ask. So I will probably add sort of footnotes to the end of chapters afterwards to explain the stuff. However, there is a pretty good Temeraire wiki already up and running which can offer some help - just google "Temeraire wiki" and it will be the first thing that pops up. But if you have questions, feel free to ask. I won't answer questions that will spoil future chapters, however.

Someone already asked about Harry's breed. Harry is closer related to the magical dragons of his original time line and looks very much like a Hebridean Black - however he isn't magical like dragons of his time line - and obviously has some other differences like ability to speak and so forth. Normally Hebridean Blacks are about 30 feet long, but Harry, being 50 feet long is a bit big for a Hebridean Black. In comparison to Temeraire dragons, Harry is currently about the size of an average middle weight. There will be more speculation about Harry in relation to Temeraire dragons later in the story, as well as detailed comparison.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


	6. Their war

**VI chapter**

**Their war**

The way to wherever the dragon formation was leading them was long and windy, but the miles went past fast. Harry, who was used to not having to fly all that much, kept up admirably with the other dragons, though his stamina could probably be contributed more to his wings than his physical strength. His wings were a bit longer and a bit wider than the other smaller dragons surrounding him had - though nowhere near as long as the wings of the leading dragon. He didn't need to beat them as often, and when the formation had loosened a little around him for account for his lack of control, he could catch the winds more easily and thus didn't tire as quickly as he no doubt otherwise would have.

They must've flown fifty miles, or more, when they finally arrived to where they had been led. The place was a little shocking, and more than worrying. it was a low mountain with a sort of old castle in the top, no where near as big as Hogwarts in size and rather simple in design, but still rather impressive with four towers and a courtyard. The courtyard itself, however, wasn't even nearly as impressive as what it housed. There were _more_ dragons there. Some of them were much smaller than Harry, being the size of some of the dragons they had seen in the wild flock Harry had managed, but most were his size - and worse of all there were two dragons aloft, a orange hued behemoth and just slightly smaller black beast, that were much bigger that Harry.

"I think they want us to land," Ginny said, nudging Hermione's shoulder and drawing her attention to the dragons around them. A man was yelling at Messoria's back, the words barely loud enough to hear. Go down, the man said, and with a worried frown Hermione leaned to repeat the call for Harry.

The black dragon hesitated for a moment and for a good reason. All the dragons in the courtyard were looking at them, and though most of them were about his size or smaller, there was so many of them. Not to mention about the fact that they all wore harnesses like the formation, and apparently with perfect ease. But, after a moment, Harry ducked down, gliding to the courtyard and landing softly, keeping a distance between himself and other dragons - which, close up, looked even more admirable. However, it was the two bigger dragons aloft that seemed to cause Harry most worry, as he kept glancing up to them after landing.

Around Harry, the formation of dragons started landing as well. They didn't surround him this time, apparently seeing no reason and no wonder. With this many dragons and few of them being so bloody big, they had nothing to fear from a dragon of Harry's size.

"There's no need to look so worried," Messoria said, walking closer and then standing still to let her crew down.

"Easy for you to say," Harry answered under his breath and did something Hermione had never seen him do before - he laid down the spikes and horns in the back of his head and neck, like an uneasy cat laying down its ears.

"Its okay, Harry," Hermione reassured him quickly, a bit ill at ease herself at the concept of _him_ being ill at ease. She had gotten used to him being a secure confident rock that couldn't be moved even by a flock of dragons. Seeing him like this was… well, unnerving. "I'm sure there is nothing to worry about."

With that said she detached her harness and slid down from his neck. Ginny followed her after a moment, and so did Luna, though she did it surprisingly slowly and stayed close to Harry. She was staring at a small brown and purple dragon that was looking at them curiously. Hermione considered asking her what it was this time, maybe she was seeing the future, but decided against it. This wasn't the time.

"Well then, Miss Granger," Captain Sutton said. "If your dragon wouldn't mind staying here for a moment, I would like you to follow me inside and -"

"Oh, Sutton, good heavens. Give the poor woman a moment to catch her breath," a new voice cut in and Hermione saw another aviator, dressed much like Sutton, walking towards them. At first Hermione thought it was young man, but then saw that it was actually a woman, as she undressed her helmet and goggles to reveal long red hair that was spilling out of her braid. "Captain Catherine Harcourt," the woman introduced herself, holding out her hand to Hermione. "I am Lily's Captain - that's her over there," she added, motioning towards the blue dragon that had been at the head of the formation with one hand while shaking Hermione's hand with the other.

"Hermione Granger," the eldest of the three said, and introduced Ginny and Luna as well before motioning at Harry, saying his name as well.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," the female Captain answered with a brief smile, sent to all of them. "I'm sure you have the most exiting tale to tell to us about how you met Harry and where he comes from, but before that I'm sure you would like a moment freshen yourself," she said. "We have the loveliest of baths here, and I'm sure some clothes can be supplied for three of you. We can talk after."

With a bang Hermione realised how she, Ginny and Luna must look for the others. The clothes they had were so poor that the word _poor_ wasn't quite enough to cover them. The coats were rough and simply made despite Ginny's best efforts, the clothing beneath were worn and discoloured by lack of proper care. And worse of all, not one of them had had the chance to bathe in ages. Of course, they had kept them selves as clean as possible over the winter, but there was little one could do when only water you use had to be fetched some mile away on a rather small water skin - or it had to be melted from snow.

She had gotten used to dirt and not being able to bath in the labour camps - the best they had been able to get was rain, really - so it hadn't really bothered her as much as it no doubt bothered Ginny and Luna who had been both kept better thorough their slavery. Even the two of them had never complained, though, so she had never really thought on it. But now, among these people who were well washed and no doubt all wore perfectly clean clothes, they must look like savages.

"A bath would be nice," she finally managed to say. It felt like understatement of the last ten thousand years or more. Judging by Ginny's nearly explosive sigh, she tended to agree.

Harcourt smiled, ignoring the look Sutton gave her. "Splendid," she said instead and then turned to Harry. "You do not mind if I steal your riders for a moment, Harry? In the mean while, you can get yourself something to eat, I'm sure. Lily can show you, you only need to ask her."

"I suppose I could eat something," Harry answered uncertainly, looking at the blue dragon that was leaning in to watch the proceedings curiously. "If it's not too much of a bother."

The reply made Catherine chuckle softly. "No bother at all, I assure you," she assured, and looked at her own dragon - which, Hermione noticed, had a rather striking pair of tusks unlike all other dragons there. "Lily dear, could you be as kind as to show Harry to the feeding grounds? Once the ground grew has undressed your armour, of course."

"Of course," the dragon nodded, lowering her head and nudging her nose against her Captain's shoulder in affection, before turning to Harry, who had cautiously lifted his spikes again. "It will take a moment for the crew the undress my armour," she said almost gently, like talking to a frightened child. "I hope you don't mind the wait."

"Not at all," Harry assured cautiously, glancing at Hermione, Ginny and Luna and then settling down. "You might want to take this thing off," he said, nudging the strap around his neck and the satchels hanging from it. "Otherwise I might get it dirty while I eat."

"Ah, of course," Ginny said, pulling out her stone knife. "Give me a moment," he said, and then limped her way to Harry's side to cut the straps.

"He is rather well behaved," Harcourt said a little later, while leading Hermione, Ginny and Luna, who had lapsed into uncharacteristic silence, towards the castle. "Is it true that he has no Captain? Not many dragons without one would consent to carrying people. How old is he?"

"Harry?" Hermione asked a bit awkwardly, not sure whether to give his real age or the time he had spent as a dragon. "Twenty seven, I think," she finally said, figuring to stick with the truth. Saying that Harry was just barely three years old probably wasn't good idea, as he had an adult mind.

"Oh, I had not realised he was so old already, though I suppose that would explain him being so calm. Lily is barely six months out of shell," Harcourt said, leading them through corridors and past doors. "Have you known Harry for long, then?"

"Since I was eleven," Hermione shrugged, now a little uneasy as she realised what the woman was doing. It had been a while since anyone had bothered to interrogate her, but at least this woman didn't go about it the way death eaters had. Still, it was a bit uncomfortable to be questioned like that. "I noticed there are lot of dragons here," Hermione said to derail the interrogation. "Is that usual?"

"No, not so much these days. Most dragons are stationed at the coast, or they're employed elsewhere," Harcourt said. "Loch Laggan is one of the best training coverts, however, and it gets some traffic - couriers coming in and heading out, you know. And then there are of course the dragons in training. My formation is currently training here, along with Temeraire and Maximus - those would be the two big ones that were flying circles around the covert - who will eventually join Lily's formation."

"I see," Hermione answered a bit awkwardly, as most of what the younger woman said went right past her. However, she was spared from answering as they came to their destination, where Harcourt led them to a dressing room. The air there was heavy with heat and moistness and the place incredibly clean in comparison to the way Hermione, Ginny and Luna had spent their last months.

"The men have larger baths," Harcourt said while loosening her neck cloth. "Since there aren't nearly so many female Captains or aviators generally. But the baths for women are no less luxurious, I'm told. Now, if you excuse me, I need to find a servant to find some clean clothes for you. You may leave your dirty clothes here here; someone will pick them up for cleaning."

Hermione nodded, a bit bewildered, glancing towards the door which apparently led to the baths with slight hesitation. Harcourt, noticing it, smiled. "Take your time," she said. "There will be plenty of time to talk later." With that said she turned and left.

Silence followed her departure, as Hermione stared at the closed door a little helplessly, not at all sure what she was supposed to think of the situation. "Well, you can stand here like lost puppies," Ginny broke the silence after a moment and started ripping her clothes off hurriedly. "I am taking a _bath_." She said the word with such force that it sounded something else entirely, making Luna jump and start to struggle out of her coat.

Hermione, realising how dirty she felt all of sudden, said nothing to them for their lack of restraint. She was too busy getting out of her clothes.

To say they took their time might've been an understatement, but as no one came to get them Hermione wasn't inclined to feel guilty. It had been _years_ since she had had a bath, so she took a time scrubbing herself clean and washing her short hair, before enjoying a swim in the small pool that was available for the bathers and then enjoying nice long sit in the steam room. It did wonders for the numerous aching scars she usually ignored as yet another part of her past she preferred not to think. Ginny, who wasted no time stretching out her scarred leg, seemed inclined to agree.

"Not that this isn't heavenly," Ginny said while they relaxed in the steam room, the heat of the room making the freckles on her face stand out more than usually. "But we are knee deep in shit, aren't we?"

"It's hard to say for sure now," Hermione murmured, frowning and unable to really deny it. "I think we might've ended up be alternate branch of time. Sentient dragons capable of speech and Muggles harnessing them to the service of some sort of military force… this obviously isn't the world as we know it."

"Not so," Luna said quietly where she lay on the stone seat on her back. "But it's still same here and there, like repainted photograph or reworked song. The frames are there."

"How so?" Hermione asked.

The blonde woman shrugged, closing her eyes and relaxing completely. "This is still home soil," she said, yawning.

"Well, I guess the geography of the world hasn't changed much," Ginny agreed with a snort. "But even if the islands are the same, it doesn't really make much difference if it's the Great Kingdom of Dragons, now does it?"

Luna just smiled at that and mumbled, "Frames of time. Kick up the sands and the mountains still remain. And there is not enough sand in Sahara to drown the oceans."

When they headed back to the dressing room, probably an hour had passed. So, it was a bit of a surprise to find a, a servant waiting for them there with a pile of clean clothes. "I hope you don't mind trousers," the woman said while handing out the clothes. "Not many here wear skirts, you see. They're not very practical around here."

"No, these are perfect, thanks," Hermione said. Hers were a bit too short while Ginny's were a bit too tight around her hips. Luna's were entirely too big, as she was a little short and pretty thin, but none of them had anything to complain. They could've been rags and coloured pink and they would've accepted them with smiles - in comparison to their own clothes, they were near luxury.

After they had pulled on the loose shirts and coats and then finally the second hand boots that had been supplied, they looked like whole new people. Hermione looked at her two friends and couldn't help an odd sort of relief. It was just a bath and clothes, but they looked so much better already. Even Luna didn't look so pale anymore.

"I've been told to take you to the dining hall," the servant said after Ginny had braided her hair and Luna had gotten the chance to run a brush through hers. "If you would follow me…"

They did, Ginny limping a little less than usually and even Luna seemed a little more relaxed. However, it didn't last long and she soon tensed anew as they came to more populated corridor. "Whirling, whirling," the blonde woman murmured as they passed another aviator. "So much movement."

Hermione still laid her hand onto the younger woman's shoulder and squeezed it compassionately. "Try ignoring it," she suggested and with a sigh Luna nodded and looked ahead again

The dining hall was somewhat crowded and lot of people looked at them as they entered. Hermione thought she noticed few of the men give once over at Ginny - the breeches and the shirt did not hide her curves all that well - but thankfully looking was all they did, and most turned back to their dinners after a moment.

"That's Captain Harcourt over there," the servant said, motioning at one table where Harcourt sat with two men wearing similar green uniforms as she. "I'll get you three something to eat, so you can go ahead and sit down," she added just as Harcourt noticed them and waved them over.

"There you are," the female Captain said with a smile that was a little strained unlike before when she had been relatively at ease. "I hope you don't mind the clothes. I suspect we can get you something more appropriate from the village later on. Come, sit down."

"Really, Catherine," one of the men said, frowning mildly. He had blond hair and somewhat neater uniform than the others, who looked a little rumpled now that there was something to compare them to. "This is the senior officer's table."

"Never mind that, Rankin," Sutton, who was the other man, said without a glance at the other man. He waved the women to sit down whilst ignoring the look the other man, Rankin, gave him. "It's a special occasion. Sit down, ladies."

Hermione glanced at Ginny and got a shrug as an answer. As the other man said nothing else against their presence, they sat down with Luna sitting between them. Once seated, Hermione glanced around the table a bit uneasily, not sure of their welcome after what the unknown man had said. However, despite the scowl on the man's face, he didn't say anything else against them. "I hope we didn't take too long," she said a bit awkwardly, turning to address Harcourt.

"Oh, not at all," she assured with a smile and then glanced at the others in the table with some measure of unease. Apparently she wasn't as calm without her dragon nearby - or maybe it was the presence of the unknown man that made her uneasy. "You already know Captain Sutton, of course. This is Captain Rankin… on Levitas."

Hermione hesitated before introducing herself and the two others. Rankin gave them a wholly faked smile while looking them over. "Pleasure, I'm sure," he said.

"It's nice to meet you," Hermione offered a little awkwardly while wondering if they had to endure the man's silent scorn for long.

"So, you're the three that came on the black middle-weight," Rankin more stated than asked. "And it is a feral, then?"

"Feral?" Hermione asked a little helplessly. "If you mean Harry, he's not dangerous."

"By feral we meant that he is not harnessed, that he does not have a Captain," Harcourt explained kindly, but her eyes were somewhat hard as she glanced at Rankin in silent rebuke. "I have no doubt he's very pleasant creature."

"Hm. Well, I suppose he is… feral, then," Hermione answered, not really liking the term much. It made Harry sound uncontrollable and wild, which was not it at all. "I guess all the dragons outside are harnessed then?"

"Every dragon here is, except for Celeritas. I suppose you will be meeting him soon," Sutton said, leaning back in his chair while lifting his tea cup and taking a sip. "How you managed to convince him to carry you I would like to know. Not very many ferals, even if they've been hatched around humans and know the tongue, would allow it after they've turned their up nose at their candidates."

Hermione didn't know quite what to say to that. It was obvious that the dragons these people knew were different from Harry - though of course they would be. "I suppose he just likes us," she finally said, not knowing what else to offer.

There was a little break in the awkward questions, thankfully, as the servant of who had shown them out of the baths brought a tray to the table, loaded with food. She quickly set plates before them, filled with bacon and eggs with some vegetables on side, before putting down a basket of bread and some cups. "If you need anything else, just call," she said cheerfully while Hermione fought the horrible urge to lunge at the bread basket. _Merlin_ it had been long time since she had had bread.

Thankfully, the people at the table were inclined to let them eat and said nothing for a while as they did just that. Ginny and Luna seemed to have the same idea about the bread, and it ended up being eaten long before they were done with their rather divine servings of food. The steamed vegetables on the side made Hermione very nearly swear to become a vegetarian, after all the meat she had eaten in the last months.

"So, do you know what breed Harry is?" Sutton asked, after the women had finished their more or less ravenous eating, which brought a rather amused smile to his face. "I've been trying to figure it out, but I don't think I've ever seen a dragon like him. There aren't that many breeds so evenly coloured and I only know three that are completely black - and he can't be any of them."

"When I saw him, I thought for a moment he was a Fleur-de-Nuit. Nearly gave me a start, I'll tell you," Harcourt agreed with a slight laugh. "But of course he couldn't be going about like that during the day. Not to mention that no Fleur-de-Nuit I've ever seen has had such spikes."

"Well, uh," Hermione said a bit awkwardly when their attention was turned expectantly to her. Harry was a Hebridean Black - or similar enough to be called a Hebridean Black, but obviously she couldn't say that, not if these people didn't know the breed. "I don't really know," she then said, and mentally blessed Ginny for not even batting an eye and Luna for being wholly distracted by her cup of tea. "He's only been Harry for us."

"Hmm…" Sutton said while changing looks with Harcourt and ignoring Rankin's somewhat displeased look. "I suppose getting Keynes take a look at him would do some good," the man then said. "Harry's probably some sort of crossbreed in any case, and if anyone here can figure out his breed, it will be Keynes."

Hermione could say little to that and merely drank the rest of her tea to avoid answering. "Would you mind if we went to see Harry?" she then asked. "He might worry."

"Of course. I shall take you, I can check up on Lily while at it," Harcourt said immediately and as she stood up so did Captain Sutton. Rankin, by the looks of it, felt no inclination to join them. Harcourt seemed a little relieved by that, and Hermione heartily agreed with that silent sentiment. It wasn't all that pleasant to sit in the receiving end of Rankin's silent disapproval.

Not that the confusion caused by the other Captains was any better, Hermione mused as she, Ginny and Luna followed them out of the dining hall. She could just hope that Harry was having easier time - and that hopefully he hadn't blurted out anything that was probably best kept among themselves

**x**

Harry in the mean while had finished going through an excellent meal himself. He didn't mind venison, really, and the times he had managed to catch rabbits and some fish had been more than welcome, but they didn't really compare to the taste of domesticated cow, well fed and this excellent in flavour. It had been so good that he had even stopped feeling like he was going to be attacked any moment by the two big dragons that were _still_ flying above them in circles.

Lily had eaten as well, along with some other dragons of the formation, and after they had finished they had settled to the side of the courtyard, out of the way. "So, you're fed like this every day?" Harry asked curiously, while cleaning his snout. Lily had it a bit easier - she had crew of humans who with rags and water buckets helped her with cleaning. Though then, they seemed more concerned about the state of her now bloodied harness.

"Well, of course not all here eat every day, but yes, they release the cows for us regularly," the blue dragon answered while licking the remains of the blood from her talons. "I suppose you haven't gotten to eat so well in a while, then?" she added, glancing at him with some measure of pity.

He was a bit leaner than the other dragons, maybe, but Harry didn't consider himself exactly starved. "I guess I don't have to. I don't have to carry around so much gear. Or do so much flying," he mused, looking up and towards the courtyard where every dragon wore harnesses. "How many dragons are there?" he asked curiously.

"Oh, we don't have more than dozen or so here currently - and that will lessen when they assign my formation," Lily answered, glancing up as well. "As whole Britain has respectable amount of dragons, but naturally not all of them are combat trained like my formation. Most are couriers and then there are the dragons in the breeding grounds. The French seem to have twice as many, if not more," she sighed, though Harry couldn't tell exactly what sort of sign it was. It sounded almost wistful.

"I see," he murmured, and then realised what she had said. _Britain_ and _the French_. After realising every dragon here was intelligent to some extend - and that every man and woman there was actually a Muggle, and not just a Muggle but in Muggle military - he had more or less given himself to the possibility that they had completely upturned the entire history of earth - or ended up in some sort of alternate version of future. To hear the familiar words, to realise that Britain was still _Britain_, threw him off the loop once more.

"How about the rest of the world?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm sure I don't know. Of course, everyone has heard about the dragons of china," Lily answered. "Finest in the world, they say, though I honestly don't know about that. Then there are the South American dragons, though I haven't heard much of them except they too have acid spitters like me. The Copacati, I believe…"

Harry stared at her with unconcealed surprise, as she trailed away, mentioning the dragons of the Turks and saying something about Scandinavian dragons - that in North America they used dragons to transport their goods - and so forth. He didn't know what caused more shock, though, the fact that there seemed to be dragons _everywhere_ or the fact that apparently the countries were the same as he knew. And were all the dragons, everywhere in the world, intelligent and able to speak?

Harry shifted a bit uncomfortably, wishing Hermione was there to sort it all out. "And… the war?" he asked, cautiously.

"Oh, the war," Lily said, perking up a little. "The war against the French. See there is this fellow in France, Napoleon, who crowned himself the emperor of France last year. He's going all around causing mischief. Fighting people and trying to take over lands of others, and such," she scoffed softly and then straightened her neck with a look of pride. "We are being trained to fight his dragons. Catherine says we will most likely be going to the canal after training, to make sure he cannot cross over."

"Napoleon, huh," Harry answered, feeling a little faint. It had been years and years since the days when he had still been in Muggle school, but he could remember history lessons about the Napoleonic wars pretty well. It had been one of the few aspects of history lessons that the boys in his class had been interested in. The lesson where the teacher had told them about the Battle of Nile and Trafalgar had been probably the best lesson that year. He couldn't recall all the details, but he remembered enough to feel an odd sort of detached dread wash over him.

"Lily," he said carefully. "What day is it today?"

"The day?" the dragon asked, glancing up with a look of confusion her face. "Well, I am not quite sure. Oh, Peck, do you know what the day is it today?" she asked, turning to look at one of the man who had been cleaning her harness.

"Fourth of April," the man answered, leaning back to look up to her. "Eighteen-oh-five, obviously," he added and then glanced at Harry. "If you want to know more about the war, you'd do well to find a better source of information. Lily here might know the essentials just as well as any dragon here, but I suspect Messoria is a bit more informed," he said with a faint grin. "As she has actually fought in the war."

"I will be fighting in it soon," Lily said a bit indignantly, not noticing how Harry looked away confusedly at the mention of the date. "Once the training is ready, we will be dispatched. Catherine says we will then have all the fighting we can desire…"

Harry lost the trail of Lily's words as he thought over what he had heard. The date, the countries, the enemy… it matched with the history he knew, he was sure thought he didn't remember all from his lessons. Except for the addition of intelligent dragons, harnessed by Muggles, the history hadn't actually changed that much. Why not? If he had accidentally changed the whole race of dragons, surely the future would be wholly different. Intelligent dragons would've been easily been able to take over humanity ages and ages ago…

Not that he really believed that he had caused this. Even if he had managed to sire some clutches of eggs back in the past… surely that wouldn't have been enough to change the whole races of dragons. Except maybe if every one of the females he had… spent time with had gone pregnant…

Whilst Lily was cleaned up, Harry shifted his wings awkwardly and looked away and towards the loch. He wanted to talk to Hermione. She'd be able to make some sense of it, he was sure.

He had barely finished the thought, when he heard the sound of someone running across the new spring grass. He just managed to turn his head in time to see Luna leaping the last few feet and up to his forearm, almost colliding against his chest in her hurry to get closer. Harry looked down to her with surprise as she curled herself up to the crook of his forearm, and then glanced up to see Hermione and Ginny following her at some distance away, with rather confused Captain Harcourt and Sutton.

"Luna?" he asked carefully, turning his attention back to the woman. She was shivering slightly.

"My head hurts," the woman answered, burying her face against his scales. "Spinning, they're all spinning."

"Oh," he said in realisation. No doubt the surplus of humans and dragons here were taxing her seer abilities, not to mention about the fact that they were soldiers and warriors in times of war. Harry didn't even want to guess how many battles and injuries - and no doubt deaths as well - the poor woman was feeling.

He lowered his head and brushed his nose against her back comfortingly. He opted not to say anything as he knew there was little he could say that would help and if there were, saying it aloud with so many Muggles around was probably not the smartest thing to do. Instead, he glanced up to Hermione and Ginny. "You look better, now that you're not so dirty." He offered a bit awkwardly. It was the truth though. Ginny's hair hadn't been so vibrantly red since that day in the cave, and Luna's hair was actually blonde again.

"You're the one to speak," Ginny snorted. "Look at you, all bloodstained." Regardless of her words, she didn't seem to feel any reluctance about stepping closer to him, and sitting on top of his fore leg, next to Luna to rub her back compassionately.

"The baths were excellent," Hermione agreed without much passion in the words. She too was looking at Luna worriedly. "I haven't felt this clean in years."

Harry licked his lips. "You haven't smelled this clean in _months_," he agreed, looking at Luna worriedly. She wasn't snapping out of it as she usually did. Sighing, he glanced up at Lily as Captain Harcourt stepped to the dragon, and Sutton who hovered near by as not so inconspicuous guard. "Do you mind if we had a moment to ourselves?" he asked frankly.

"I suppose there is no reason why you could not," Harcourt said while stroking her hand gently over Lily's cheek. "But, if you don't mind me asking… is there something the matter? If Miss, uh, Lovegood was it? If Miss Lovegood feels ill, we have very talented surgeon present who no doubt could help."

"Luna's ailment isn't one that can be fixed, not really," Harry answered while lifting his front leg so that Ginny could help Luna to his back. "A moment of peace and quiet will help her calm down." Not to mention it offered a perfect excuse to have a private talk with the women. If he hadn't known better, he would've almost thought that Luna had intentionally overplayed her fit to arrange it. But Luna's mind didn't really work like that, anymore.

"Then, by all means," Harcourt said after gaining a nod of approval from Sutton. "Take your time."

With that approval, Harry wanted until the women were on his back securely, and then stood. He didn't fly, as they didn't really need to get that far to talk privately amongst themselves and he no longer didn't feel comfortable flying with the women aboard without any sort of harness to secure them. It also gave Hermione and Ginny a moment to soothe Luna into better frame of mind and by the time he was sure they were far away from the other dragons and their Captains to talk privately, the blonde was in better mood.

"It is difficult," she murmured, as Harry settled down on a comfortable patch of grass to let the women off his back. "So many events. They spin around and circle, rise and descent and fly around haphazardly."

"I believe you," Harry said, speaking as softly as he could and nuzzling her shoulder gently as she curled up on the crook of his foreleg again. "I guess you're seeing the war."

"The war?" Hermione asked, looking up to him. "You know about the war these people are in?"

"I asked from Lily - she was very helpful. And I think you know the war better than I do, if you were at all as good with studying when you were still in Muggle school," Harry answered with a grim snort, keeping his voice low. His voice carried much further than theirs after all, unless he paid special attention to prevent it. "According one of the men attending to Lily, the year is eighteen-oh-five."

"Well, we already knew that we are in the beginning of the nineteenth century," Ginny answered confusedly, not understanding the significance. "Well, I suppose knowing the exact date is useful…"

"Wait, eighteen-oh-five, by Gregorian calendar? But that, oh…" Hermione stopped, her eyes widening with realisation. She turned hurriedly to look back towards the other dragons, the castle. "But… I don't understand. If our actions in the past created this time line - which I'm still not sure of - then it shouldn't… it shouldn't be so close. Giving sentience to dragon kind should've changed everything. Time line, civilisation, _languages_! How could…?"

"What?" Ginny asked confusedly.

"If it went down the way we think it did, we changed the timeline starting from when we were in the past - and that was eons and eons ago," Harry answered, looking towards the other dragons as well. "That sort of change should've changed the whole course of history. If nothing else, human cultures should we whole lot different, especially if I got the whole situation right and dragons are sentient everywhere. And yet…"

"And yet the people here speak _English_," Hermione said. "And the names! Almost all dragons here have Latin names, and the people have perfectly normal English names. Hell, the name of the place, _Loch Laggan_!" she shook her head, looking more bewildered than anything. "How did I miss this, when I realised we were in alternate timeline?"

"This is still, somehow, Kingdom of Great Britain," Harry agreed. "And these people, these dragon riding aviators, are part of the kingdom's forces in their war… against Napoleon."

"But… but that shouldn't be possible," Hermione said, turning to him. "You can't just add something like _sentient dragons_ for Merlin sake, and still keep the timeline and history intact like this."

"Is… that a bad thing?" Ginny asked confusedly. "I mean, it's all better for us that this is Britain and these people understand English and so forth, isn't it?"

"Well, sure, but it doesn't make much sense, does it?" Hermione asked. "So little here is different, considering. It should be so much different - worst case scenario, dragons should've wiped humanity out ages and ages ago. The only reason they didn't in our time like is because they had weaknesses people could exploit - intelligent dragons should've been able compensate for those weaknesses. And even if they wouldn't manage to do that, things still should've been different. The people should've been different, the time, the ways…" She frowned. "It doesn't make sense."

"Frames," Luna's voice interrupted, making them turn to her. She had a sleepy, tired look about her face. "Events, connecting points. Mountains. Throw up all the sand of time you want at them, still the mountains stay. This war, it's a mountain." She shuddered. "A big mountain."

"You mean… you mean some things can't be changed by time travel?" Hermione asked, a bit unsurely.

"Civilisations, conquests, wars, world changing events," the blonde girl answered. "What shapes a world. Shift them around, stretch them, shrink them, but never erase them."

"But that would mean that the time is pre-written," Hermione said, frowning a little. "Why, how?"

"Okay, as important as this talk about time travel and why this world is or isn't similar to ours is all fine and dandy," Ginny cut in. "But don't we have more important things to consider? The world is different than we know it, and still same, and so forth, but what does this mean to _us_ - and more importantly, to our _mission_? You know, Voldemort, the war - _our war_?"

Hermione blinked and Harry shook his head to shake the dread that had lodged into it as the concept of the Napoleonic wars. "Right," Hermione answered, and frowned. "Well, when they brought us here, I had a pretty clear idea about what we had to do. Go back in time, and stop ourselves back in the valley from messing everything up."

"You mean, stop Harry from having a prolific love live," Ginny snorted, and Harry looked away a bit uneasily. He wasn't exactly proud of his lack of restraint in the past. Thankfully, Ginny just shook her head at him and turned to Hermione. "So, we'd do this… how? With the first spell? Could we even be sure we'd get to the right time?"

"No, probably not, but if we could get sometime before, we could write ourselves message to the cave, or something like that," Hermione shrugged. "I didn't much like the idea, but it seemed like the only natural option. However, knowing this…" she motioned towards the castle and the courtyard. "This place is _different_. But if the time is still the same… if the events are same… then I think our wars will still happen. Voldemort will still be born. If it's one of those mountain-events."

"Is," Luna answered softly.

"But if it is a mountain-event, then shouldn't we be unable to change it?" Harry asked worriedly and looked down to Luna with an uneasy feeling. "Luna, did you know the war is a mountain-event when we went back in time?"

"Yes," she said, looking up while leaning her cheek against his chest. "But mountains can be changed. Dark lord with his dark reign stand on one single dark mountain. It will still stay, but you can make it smaller."

"The first war and the second war - and the take over - it's all one mountain-event?" Harry asked, to which the broken-minded seer nodded.

"That means we could, theoretically, make it shorter," Hermione said, looking up. "Maybe stop it to the first war. Maybe even shorten the first war."

"But is it the same?" Ginny asked, peering uneasily up above where the two large dragons were flying loops and making dives. "With this dragon-time-line?"

"Obviously not," Hermione murmured. "But… I'm not sure now if this is as much an alternate timeline, or _our_ timeline that was reworked by our actions. Or, well, Harry's actions."

"If you're expecting me to apologise or something, then yes, I'm _sorry_, I wouldn't have done anything if I had known I would change the time line," Harry answered awkwardly. That wasn't quite true, though. As much as the whole time lines changing did worry him, it was… _nice_ seeing other sentient dragons. He shook his head to hide the feeling and looked away. "I didn't even know I was able to… you know. Doesn't seem like something Voldemort would bother to give me."

The women said nothing to that for a moment, before Ginny suddenly had to stifle a snort of laughter. "I just… I just realised, every dragon here is Harry's few-hundred-times-great-grandchild," she giggled. "And I thought we Weasleys were productive!"

"This is not amusing, Ginny," Hermione said, but with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She shook her head. "I think the first thing we need to do, is get to the magical world. How we do that, though…" she frowned, glancing at the castle. "These people have been pretty kind about it so far, but I get the feeling we didn't have much a choice coming here. Nor do I think we have much a choice about leaving."

"Or I don't, at least," Harry said, thinking back to what Lily had said.

"Yes," Hermione agreed, frowning. "If I understood the whole thing right, all dragons are either in the service of Aerial Corps, or they are otherwise contained and kept from causing trouble. I guess dragons who are feral and unharnessed are kept in places similar to dragon reserves. I need to find out more to be certain, but…"

"But they will probably not let me go on our terms, yeah," Harry agreed.

"I guess we need to play by their rules and find out more, huh?" Ginny mused. "Could be worse - and after those baths I'm willing to give them the benefit of doubt. Not to mention about the _food_," she sighed dreamily and for a moment Harry was sharply reminded of her brother.

"Do you think you can be comfortable here while we try and see what we can find out?" Hermione asked from Harry.

"Oh, I don't mind. They already fed me a _cow_, for Merlin's sake, so these people are all right in my books. And I wouldn't mind the chance to talk more with the other dragons," Harry answered thoughtfully. "I was actually hoping that I might get one of those harnesses even," he added, looking at the other dragons. "It would be safer for you when we fly."

"Hmm… maybe. The process of taking care of those things and removing them seems a bit complicated though. I'm not sure if we could do it as easily, just the three of us," the short haired brunette murmured. "But it would be safer, no doubt."

"It doesn't hurt to ask," Ginny mused. "If nothing else, they could show me how they're made and I could work something out later on."

"Hmm," Hermione nodded and then looked towards Lily, Harcourt and Sutton. "I think we ought to get back before they get nervous," she said, and immediately Luna shifted closer to Harry, curling up deeper into the crook of his foreleg.

"You think they'd mind if the two of us stayed here a bit longer?" Harry asked, looking down to the blonde woman who obviously didn't want to return to the more busier part of the covert just yet. "You can tell us what you find out later on."

"I'm sure they won't mind," Hermione said, giving Harry a smile. They exchanged few words of caution, making each other promise to be careful about what they told these people and putting together a hasty back story in case they would have no choice but to tell something. At least that way they stories would match, somewhat. With that done, Hermione and Ginny nodded their goodbyes than then headed but up the hillside and towards Harcourt.

"You don't mind?" Luna asked after moment of comfortable silence. "Hinder on your conversation."

"Conversation can wait," Harry answered calmly while shifting his wings and his hind legs into better position and then relaxing completely. "You cannot," he added, laying his head to the ground where he could see her better. "If it's easier for you being with me, then take all the time you need."

"Not… easier, like not distracting. Merlin, you spin," Luna laughed a little helplessly. "Now more than ever. Fire and flight and explosions in the clouds. But it's just _you_. With the others, it's them and theirs and _them_."

"Hm. Well, dragons here aren't alone," Harry agreed. "They have their Captains and their crews too. Their formations. All with their own fates."

"Yes," the pale blonde agreed, leaning to his chest and closing her eyes. She shivered slightly then, so Harry took a deep breath, directing some of it to where his fire came from, and started humming. During the winter he had noticed that humming from where the fire came from made his body temperature rise - it wasn't exactly comfortable on a somewhat warm day, but less so than seeing the girl cold.

"Mm, you're nice," Luna murmured, and relaxed against him, closing her eyes.

Harry closed his eyes well, humming in low, almost purring rhythm to keep the temperature level. He only looked up when a voice called over the courtyard, calling the two dragons down from the sky. Curious, he watched the pair of them as they turned and angled towards a cluster of buildings on the side of the mountain, landing in front of them. Soon after, people came out of the buildings to relieve them from their heavy battle gear.

War on dragon back, huh, he mused thoughtfully while watching the process. It would've seemed like fantasy more than anything - except being a former wizard turned into a dragon, it didn't seem as much fantasy of magic and dragon as it seemed like fantasy of incredible _convenience_. He couldn't help but think what would've happened in _their_ time if they had had dragons. Or if their side had dragons like these, and Voldemort did not. The whole war would've gone differently.

Not that the concept of Napoleonic wars being fought on dragons wasn't _different_ enough, he thought. It made him really wonder how the history had gone on this time line. There had been wars before - had dragons been part of those wars? How? Luna had said that mountain-events could be condescended or stretched. Had that happened here, were certain things different about history, certain wars shorter, longer?

It really made him wish he had studied history a bit closer when he had been a kid. It had been utterly boring then, but trying to figure out what sort of influence dragon kind could have on it… it was like nothing he had imagined before, and all the more interesting because of it.

As he pondered on this, and Luna dozed off on his leg, the big orange dragon bounced off to the feeding ground. The black one with a fin-like ruff round the back of his head waited until his whole harness was off and not just his battle gear, before following. Harry had of course seen dragons eat before, but the sheer size of these two dragons made it fascinating to watch, as they dived down and snatched pair of frightened cows from the pen with ease.

He couldn't help but feel a sense of odd, mixed dread and excitement as he watched them. Just how many were there of their size? There seemed to be more of the smaller dragons here, but elsewhere… were dragons of their size common? What was the war like with them in it? How did they fight?

Shifting his wings, Harry eyed the dragons, and wondered if there was a chance he'd get to see them in action one day.

x

There we go, sixth chapter. Hopefully I didn't completely ruin the characters from Temeraire universe. It's my first time writing them, so it's all a bit experimental. Also, since I bet someone is going to ask, Laurence and Temeraire will both make personal appearance in next chapter. My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


	7. Lies and flames

**VII chapter**

**Lies and flames**

Luna dreamt of air, of wind soaring past her and rising and lowering in great gusts in the beat of a dragon's wings. Above her and all around her clouds were whirling past - and not just clouds, but smoke and explosions, and the roaring of dragon fire. Flash of red of blood - and suddenly she was above an ocean, with dozens of dragons whirling around her and past her, tangled in battle, roaring, roaring away.

She shivered, and woke to the feeling of a hand on her shoulder, startling so violently that she almost pushed herself into the niche created by the crook of Harry's foreleg. The hand withdrew immediately and as the smoke and fire and clouds cleared from her eyes, she saw a man standing up straighter. "Pardon, Miss," the man said, sounding worried. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She looked up sharply and then around herself, to see that Harry was fast asleep with his head resting against the grassy ground, one black wing reaching forward to shelter his eyes from the light of the setting sun. She turned her eyes back to the man in the bottle green coat again, and frowned at him.

He seemed a little embarrassed. "I was meant to show you back inside, Captain Harcourt asked me to," he explained quickly. "It's still bit too cold to sleep outside."

"Oh," she murmured, seeing the truth in the words. She frowned a little at the man before him - not really seeing him as much as through him and into the times ahead him.

"Umm," the man hummed awkwardly as she said nothing further. "My name is Granby, Miss. John Granby - I'm unassigned Lieutenant here," he finally offered, apparently not knowing what else to say.

She smiled, more at his future than at him. "Luna Lovegood," she answered, glancing at Harry once more before sliding down from his foreleg. The man eyed her with confusion as she turned away from him, but the expression cleared a bit as Luna kneeled down beside Harry's head to give him a kiss.

"Mmm," the black dragon hummed, almost purred, while opening one eye. "Off to bed?" he asked.

"Would seem," she answered, wrapping her arms as much around his snout as she could, and sighing heavily. She would've much preferred to stay with him - Harry was fast and yet so much slower than humans. He spun and whirled, dived and ducked and bathed his surroundings in fire, but he would remain and remain and remain for a long while. Everyone else felt so short and brief in comparison. Especially humans.

"Goodnight, then," the dragon said, nudging her belly with his nose to try and make her let go. "Try and get some sleep too, Luna. I know your head spins, but you need your rest."

"Spins… yes," Luna sighed, burying her face to his cheek for a moment before pulling back. She glanced at the castle and at all the fates and destinies and futures ahead that whirled around it. She didn't want to go there, not really. But she knew she would. Harry wouldn't let her stay outside when it got too dark and too cold. "I will try."

"Good girl," the dragon said, and then lifted his head to look at the confused looking dark haired Lieutenant. "Take care of her, and don't take longer than necessary in taking her to Hermione and Ginny," he more ordered than asked. "They can help her once her mind starts to twirl too much."

"Her mind starts to _what_…?" the man asked awkwardly, looking between Luna and Harry. He didn't understand - suspected, even imagined, but didn't quite understand.

"She has a shattered mind," Harry answered calmly, resettling his wings lazily. "It makes it hard for her to handle people."

"You're calling me insane, Harry," Luna said, smiling softly.

"You _are_, Luna," the dragon answered gently, and laid his head down again. He yawned and then closed his eyes. "Go inside and try and get some rest. I'll be here in the morning."

"Yes," Luna sighed, and pressed one more kiss to his cheek before standing up. Granby was now looking at her with realisation - and maybe a measure of anxiety. "Broken minded," Luna said to him sternly. "Not dangerous."

"No, of course not. Sorry, Miss," he answered awkwardly, glancing between her and the dragon and then turning towards the castle, motioning her to go ahead. "This way, Miss."

"Luna," she answered firmly, but stepped forward and away from the slow sanctuary of Harry's future and into the fluctuating currents of those not as stable. She shivered slightly, but kept her back straight and her chin high. She had promised to get some rest, so get some rest she would. Even if it would no doubt be very restless.

"Luna," the man answered awkwardly, and fell in step with her, trying not to look at her too long and only giving her some sideways glances. She ignored them and him and the fire burning in his future, and looked ahead instead.

In time, the castle of Loch Laggan would crumble, she saw. It would be repaired, once, twice, and few more times, but eventually it would be beyond repair. A facility would be build to its left and then to its right, and by the shoreline a massive pavilion would stand one day. Dragons would live here for centuries come, even after people would stop calling the lace a covert and politics would find it a different name.

"How long?" she asked curiously. "Dragon wings shed shadows upon this place. For how long?"

The Lieutenant gave her a look but seemed to be able to understand the question. "Well, more or less since the Roman times," he answered. "It's because the baths, mostly - they're Roman designed and they were made especially for hatching dragon eggs, you see."

Luna frowned, thinking back to the steam room. "I don't see," she then said. "And I didn't."

"Well, the eggs are mostly kept in the men's baths," Granby said awkwardly. "In the sweat room - the wall there is made full of niches for dragon eggs. The women's baths are used so rarely, that it's more secure to keep them in the men's side. That way people will notice immediately if they start to hatch."

"Aah," Luna nodded, and now she did see. She smiled. "Many will hatch here," she mused.

"Yeah, probably," the man agreed a little awkwardly, and said nothing more as they made their way inside. Luna frowned, trying to smother the upcoming headache and the urge to run away, and instead followed the man pass a crowded dining hall and few other rooms.

"Fade, fade, fade away," the woman murmured, and realising just how _many_ of the people she could feel wouldn't be around to see the next decade. She hadn't felt so much death in a long, long while - and when she had, the feeing had been no where near this strong. But that was before people had reached into her head and broken her mind open so that she'd see more - and at that time, the war had been fought and won and lost and the dying had died already. The peace of those times had been full of terror and pain, but not death, not anymore. It had not been beneficial for Voldemort anymore.

She turned her eyes away and tried to concentrate onto the floor and to the beat of the Lieutenant's feet, the sound of his boots. He would get a new pair within the year.

"This is it," Granby finally said, stopping in front of a closed door and knocking it briskly. Hermione's voice called from inside, and the man answered: "It's Lieutenant Granby. I've brought Miss Lovegood."

The door was immediately opened. "Oh, finally. We were just about to go and see if we could find her ourselves," Ginny said, pulling Luna closer and checking her over. "What took you so long? I was starting to think you had wandered off somewhere again."

"Slept," Luna answered, a little soothed by her anger. "Harry was calm."

"Well I suppose its good you got a chance for some rest," Ginny sighed, and then turned to Granby. "Thank you," she said firmly, frowning a bit as the man flushed and attempted to not stare down the open neckline of her loose shirt - which still was a little tight around her chest. "Was there something else you needed?"

"No ma'am," the man said awkwardly. "I was just asked to escort Miss Lovegood to your room."

"Thank you. I appreciate it," Ginny said slowly.

The man nodded, glancing at them once more a bit awkwardly, and then turned on his heel to leave.

Ginny sighed with exasperation before pulling Luna inside and closing the door behind her. "You'd think some of the men here have never seen a woman," she muttered with irritation while locking the door and then pushing Luna towards the beds.

"Actually, taking in consideration the time and the fact that most people here are officers, they are rather loose about women. Its bit of a shock to see women as aviators, actually," Hermione answered from where she was peering out of the window. She glanced back at Ginny, looking a bit amused. "You, however are, well…"

"Shapely," Luna offered while sitting down to one of the beds and resting her hand against it. It was so soft. She had forgotten what a bed felt like.

Hermione nodded. "And that shirt is a bit more open that is perfectly proper in these times."

Ginny snorted, but buttoned up her shirt. "Hang them all," she muttered, not meaning the men in the covert, but the wizards in future past who had preferred her a certain way to the extent of reshaping her with potions and such. Luna gave her a sad look, but Ginny either didn't notice it or ignored it.

"How was Harry?" Hermione asked, turning to Luna who was leaning down to curl on the bed, enjoying the mattress fully.

"Slow. Sleeping," Luna answered. "Restful."

"Good for him," Ginny answered, sitting down to her own bed and sighing. "Any chance tomorrow might not be as troublesome as today?" she asked wistfully.

Luna chuckled at that.

"Yeah. Probably not. All we can do is rest now and prepare for whatever other shocks are ahead of us," Hermione said, and stepped away from the window. "For now let's just take this chance to catch some sleep and then take tomorrow on once we have regained some of our strength."

Luna hummed at that, closing her eyes and sighing. The bed felt so good that she could almost block out the futures whirling around the castle. The battles and piercing pain of injuries and sudden ends of death… all fading to the back.

It would've been good, if she hadn't known how restless a seer's sleep was.

x

There was something very wrong about going to sleep in the most comfortable thing you had gotten the chance to enjoy in ages - and waking up feeling like every muscle in your body hated you, Ginny mused as she forced herself out of the bed. Groaning softly, she rubbed her shoulders and stretched her arms, her neck stiff and aching. Trying to loosen it, she wondered if it would be rude to head to the baths and take a nice hour or two to enjoy the steam room.

"You too?" Hermione asked from her bed, where she was stretching her legs.

"My neck is _killing_ me," Ginny murmured, tilting her head left and right. "And here I thought sleeping in a bed for once would be a nice thing. Fuck this. Ooh, my back…" Hermione snorted without giving and answer, but Ginny hadn't really been expecting one in any case. While standing up to see if it would feel any better, she noticed that one of the three beds were empty. "And when did Luna get up and run off?" she asked, not particularly surprised.

"Hour ago, I think," Hermione answered. "She couldn't sleep well and I think she only waited this long to make sure no one could argue if she went to join Harry."

"You sure that's where she went?" Ginny asked, though she didn't really doubt it. Luna had a habit of running of to Harry when she had nightmares - he was like great big teddy bear for her in those times. Possibly because he was so long live, she mused. Who knew how long Harry's natural lifespan now was - much, much longer than the easily killed humans Luna most likely had been in such a hurry to get away from.

"Either she did, or she headed of to have one of her walks. In any case, she probably didn't stay in the castle," the brunette answered. "I'd worry after her a little more, but…" she trailed away as she leaned down towards her outstretched knees. This resulted a pop coming from her neck, and as she straightened, lifting her shoulders and twisting her back, there were couple more pops. "Aah, yeah," she sighed. "That's ever so much better."

"That is frankly rather disturbing actually," Ginny answered. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Labour camps. There are lot of things you learn to keep yourself working - when you fall behind your quota, they notice and that is not what you want," Hermione shrugged before standing up. It really said something about the time spent together and the friendship renewed that she could say it so casually, Ginny mused as the brunette stretched her arms, saying: "Time to get ready for the day. And I have a feeling it's going to be a difficult one."

"Why do you think so?" the younger woman asked while reaching for her borrowed coat.

"Because they didn't interrogate us that much yesterday. Which means they will probably do it today," the brunette answered. "This is a military facility after all, even if one centred on dragons, and they didn't bring us here just to serve us food and offer us a bath. They will no doubt want to know where Harry came from - and I wouldn't be surprised if they were already going about questioning him."

Ginny frowned. "And that is obviously a bad thing," she said, though she couldn't help but make it a bit like a question. Wizards had never really had militaries, aside from law enforcement forces similar to the Auror Corps, so she didn't really understand these things as well as Hermione no doubt did, being a Muggle born.

"Three women appearing out of nowhere on a dragon which is not of any breed they know and in their eyes is a wild and uncontrolled?" Hermione asked with faint amusement. "Not to mention that this happens during the war time."

"Okay, so we're suspicious," Ginny muttered, frowning as she sat down to pull her boots on. "What should we do?"

"Not tell them the truth, obviously," the brunette answered while pulling her own coat on. "Not that they'd believe us, but it's enough that they know _Luna_ is insane. Best not to give that impression of the two of us. The best we could do, I guess, is get to Harry and Luna quickly and collaborate a lie to cover us." She let out a soft hiss and rolled her shoulder. "We should've done it yesterday when we had the chance, but I was too overwhelmed by other things and didn't think of it."

Ginny thought about it and nodded, figuring that it was probably the best way to go. If they told these Muggles anything even close to the truth, they'd be locked up as lunatics. "Please tell me you have a story ready," she said.

"Sadly I don't. And like an idiot I went and told Harcourt Harry's real age, which makes things a bit more difficult. If I had said that he's only few years old, it would be easier," Hermione sighed. "We could say we found an egg maybe from the mountains or something like that and pretend we've been living with him like hermits ever since. But instead I told these people that he's twenty seven, that I met him when I was eleven… and we can't very well go changing the story now."

"So… maybe some other hermit found Harry's egg, he died, and you ran into him later on - and we've been living as hermits since then?" Ginny offered.

"I don't know if that's exactly believable," Hermione said, chuckling as she finished pulling on her boots. "Come on. Let's see if we can catch a lucky break and can spend a moment with Harry and Luna before our generous hosts start with their interrogation."

Ginny frowned, but nodded and followed the elder woman out of the room. It had been eight years since she had been last interrogated. Back then the interrogation had been brief, as there had been little information she had been able to offer - but it had been beyond painful, making the mere memory of it seem longer than it had been. She wasn't looking forward to a repeated experience, even if these Muggles didn't have things such as Cruciatus curse in their disposal.

There was a man waiting not far from the door of their room and when Hermione and Ginny got closer to him, he stood up from a windowsill where he had been sitting, and gave them a casual smile. "I beg your pardon, ladies, but senior cap' Sutton has asked me to keep an eye on you," he said, oddly cheerful for someone who had just announced to be their guard. "And to show you around," he added as an after thought.

"That's alright," Hermione said, sounding a bit amused. "I guess you could show us outside, then. We want to check up on Harry - and see if that's where Luna vanished off to."

"Luna, that would be the blonde girl with you? Yes, she headed out about an hour ago - I had a cadet show her the way, since she seemed a bit lost," said the man - though looking at him a bit closely Ginny had to say that he was probably only a boy, younger than any of them. "Oh, begging your pardon. My name is Martin," the man said. "I'm a midwingman - currently unassigned, but hopefully that will change someday soon."

He had such a cheerful way of speaking, that Ginny's foul mood shifted a little and she smiled at the young man. "You know, considering that you're supposed to watch us, shouldn't you have kept Luna back instead of letting her go off her merry way?" she asked, amused.

"The poor thing looked so distraught that I just couldn't," the man answered, embarrassed. "I heard from Granby that she's… not quite well, so I figured that there was no harm in it. In any case, I asked Roland to fetch one of the midwingmen to take over her watch, so it should be alright."

Hermione shook her head at him as he stepped forward to lead them. "I don't think this is how you're supposed to watch over prisoners," she mused with a chuckle.

Martin looked faintly embarrassed. "Well, you're not prisoners per say, so that is not it at all," he said and then straightened his back. "Besides, if I just hovered about not saying much, I dare say you could pick up my intentions eventually. It is much easier to have them in the open, is it not?"

"I guess it works better," Hermione admitted, laughing.

They made their way outside and to the courtyard where the dragons were basking on the warmth of the cobblestones - below, Ginny realised, were the baths with their steam rooms, which was probably why the pavement felt warm even through the soles of her boots. Most of the dragons were asleep, not even twitching as Martin let them cheerfully through them and to the more open grassy area. Harry laid comfortably little to the side - at safe distance from the other dragons - with Luna happily lying across his back. Harry was awake; talking with the big black dragon they had seen training in the previous day.

"… sense at all," the big black dragon was saying, whilst Harry looked up to him thoughtfully. "But it is one of those things that I fear will never make much sense to me, despite how clearly Laurence attempts to explain it. In any case, it is easier to be in the service I imagine - when we were in Madeira, Laurence had some difficulty getting me food, but here in Britain the Corps supply it all and he needn't bother."

"I guess that's one of the benefits," Harry answered. "But you didn't have any choice?"

"It is not that I did not have a choice. I imagine should I choose differently, it would take Maximus and more to stop me - and he is not fast as I am," the black dragon answered, somewhat indignant. "It is Laurence, who had no choice. He was a Naval Captain before, and duty is very important to him." The dragon looked a bit annoyed now. "Which is another thing I think I do not completely understand, any more than I understand ownership the way humans have it. They have so many queer concepts."

Harry laughed at that softly, and then turned his head as he caught sight of Ginny, Hermione and Martin as they approached him. "Good morning," the dragon greeted them and Luna in his back turned to look at them upside down from where she lay. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough," Hermione answered whilst Ginny wondered if Harry even remembered what it was like, to get aches and sore muscles from sleeping in a bed that was _too comfortable_. "Who is your friend?"

"My name is Temeraire," the big black dragon answered, peering down to them curiously. "Are you Harry's Captain? I thought Luna might be when she arrived, but she said her head isn't on right for that."

Hermione chuckled while Martin hung back, watching them curiously. "No, I'm just a friend. My name is Hermione - and this is Ginny," she added, motioning at the redhead who nodded. "Harry doesn't have a Captain," Hermione added.

"Oh," the big dragon murmured, looking a bit taken back as he turned to Harry. "Are you like Celeritas, then? He doesn't have a Captain either; only, he had once, long ago. Laurence said that dragons sometimes outlive their Captains."

"No. I never had a Captain," Harry answered, shaking his head and looking oddly amused. Ginny watched the exchange with some measure of astonishment. Harry had seemed so nervous of the bigger dragons in the day before, now he seemed perfectly at ease. It made her really wonder what they had been talking about before to make him loosen up so quickly.

"Oh," Temeraire said again, and if Ginny hadn't known better she'd have said that the dragon was _frowning_. "Isn't that very sad? It sounds very lonely. What I would do without Laurence, I'm sure I do not know. And I think it is the same for Maximus."

"Sad?" Harry asked, a bit surprised. "Well, no, I don't think it's particularly sad. I guess I've just never needed a Captain," he answered, seeming a bit awkward now.

"To be alone and not with," Luna answered from Harry's back, reaching her hand up like to try and touch the cloud. "Torn apart and not complete."

"I think I'm complete enough the way I am, thank you very much," Harry answered, tilting his head back and blowing a no doubt hot gust of breath at her in retaliation of her words. "I don't know about you, though."

"Yes, you do," she answered serenely, making him snort again.

Ginny smiled faintly at their rapport while Hermione just shook her head in amusement. "You think you could spare us a moment, Harry?" the brunette asked, glancing at Temeraire. "Unless you mind?"

"No, of course not. We can continue our discussion later, I'm sure. It is about time I get my harness on in any case," the big dragon answered, now craning his head to see - and then standing up, looking delighted. "Ah, here is Laurence."

Ginny glanced over her shoulder, curious to see what this dragon Captain would be like. They had met only three so far - Harcourt, Sutton and Rankin - and since none of them seemed alike the other, she was curious to know which one of them represented the norm. Casual friendliness of Harcourt, the somewhat irritable formality of Sutton or the cool distain of Rankin?

It was hard to say at first - the aviator's uniform didn't give much away except that he was another aviator among many, and the rather expressionless face gave away even less. When the big dragon called the man's name, however, a warm smile immediately appeared to the man's face, and his expression lost its hardness. "Good morning, my dear," the man called to the dragon, before looking at the others. "Martin," the man added, nodding at the midwingman.

"Captain," the yellow haired young man answered with a grin and casual wave. "Have you had the chance to meet our newest guests?" the young man asked. "They arrived just yesterday. Ladies," he added, turning to the women. "This is Captain William Laurence, Temeraire's Captain, obviously," he said, and then turned to the Captain again before motioning at the women one at a time. "And these are Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley and Luna… Lovegood, I think." He said, pausing a bit at Luna's name. "Did I get that right?"

"Yes, that's correct," Hermione answered, grinning at the young man. "Captain," she then said, nodding.

"Miss Granger, it is a pleasure. Miss Weasley, Miss Lovegood," the man nodded to them all, smiling with a hint of carefully smothered discomfort. "We were in middle of a training flight when you arrived yesterday. You were escorted by Lily's formation, I believe," the man nodded, glancing between them and very steadily looking nowhere near below their chins, which Ginny noted with some amusement. "I hope Temeraire has not troubled you any," the man said.

"I have been perfectly polite," the big dragon assured. "Harry was just asking how I liked to be in the service of the Aerial Corps, and I was telling him that I do not quite know, as we are only training and have not done any fighting yet," he added, before giving the smaller dragon a sideways glance. "Harry does not have a Captain."

"Indeed?" Laurence asked, now looking curiously up to Luna. "I was under the impression that Miss Lovegood… I mean, I saw her yesterday with Harry. I fear I might've drawn conclusions."

"I think she'd Captain me right into a black hole given half a chance," Harry said amusedly, gaining a look of bewilderment from Laurence and Temeraire both.

"Into a what?" Temeraire asked curiously.

"He means that Luna would lead him astray. She doesn't quite have the mind for any sort of navigating," Hermione rushed to explain, with slightly strained smile, sending Harry a look.

"Well, we best be off," Laurence said after a moment of awkward silence, looking up to his dragon. "We have long day of training ahead of us, my dear, and we must be getting about your harness. I beg of you to excuse us," he added, nodding to the women and after getting a nod from Hermione, the man turned, leading Temeraire past them and towards the wooden buildings in the side. They talked as they went, Temeraire asking if there were many dragons without handlers. Before they were too far to hear, Ginny could hear the dragon commenting on their way of speaking - apparently Harry spoke strangely in his opinion.

"Poor fellow is still not quite used to our ways, I think," Martin noted with some amusement. "Laurence seems like good man, I'd say, but he's still more accustomed to the way the Navy handle things. I hear he stuttered something awful when he met Harcourt the first time."

"Hm. That has been bothering me a bit," Hermione mused, looking after Temeraire and Laurence with a frown. "I take it that the Aerial Corps are the only section of His Majesty's forces that have women in service?"

"That is correct," the yellow haired youth nodded, grinning. "The rest of the forces would have nice little collaborative fit if they'd learn, I imagine, which is why we hush the matter up. But there is no choice - the Longwings only take female Captains, you see, and we cannot lose them to because of mere traditional thinking."

"Hm," Hermione hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose that explains it. I guess Longwings are important breed of dragons, then?"

"The most valuable we have, next to the Regal Coppers," the young man answered, now looking at her with some measure of curiosity. "They spit acid, you see," he added when Hermione remained confused. "An acid spitter is dead useful in a battle, of course, so they're very valuable - valuable to the point of bending few traditions."

"And keeping that bending a secret. I guess I understand," Hermione nodded while Harry hummed in thought over what they just learned. The brunette shook her head and smiled at the young man. "Martin, would you mind if we had a moment to ourselves?" she asked, motioning at Harry. "We won't take long."

"Well… I suppose it is alright," the young man answered, though he frowned as he looked Harry over. His eyes lingered on the dragon's neck for a moment, and he relaxed. "Though if you don't mind, don't go too far. I won't be much of a watchman if I'm no where near to watch you."

"We won't go far," Hermione promised, and then motioned Harry and Ginny to follow whilst Luna flipped to her belly and reached for Harry's spikes for support so that she wouldn't fall. "Into a black hole," Hermione muttered as they went. "You need to watch for that sort of slips, Harry."

"I'm sorry, I didn't think," the dragon answered, not sounding particularly guilty. "It's not like they understood anyhow."

"Yes, but rising suspicion with few more slips of that kind won't help us. It's already bad enough that we're no doubt strange to them, not to mention about the way we speak," Hermione said, glancing around to see that they were at a safe distance and then sighing. "We need to be careful with what we say. All of us."

"What do you mean, the way we speak?" Ginny asked, frowning. "Sure, the people here sound a bit stiff and kind of formal, but…

"It's not that they're stiff and formal - hell, in the standards of this time, most people here are downright casual," Hermione snorted. "English language has chanced over the centuries, some words have gotten new meanings, and others have lost their old ones. If we aren't careful, we could insult these people gravely by saying few words which are perfectly normal to us, but not so normal to them."

"Is that why you've been talking weirdly?" Ginny asked.

Hermione nodded. "It's best that we try to mimic them in the way we speak," she said. "And steer away from words that they might take offence off. It's a different time, with different values and before we know more, we need to be careful. Which brings us to why I wanted to talk with you," she added, looking up to Harry. "What have you told these dragons so far, about yourself?"

"Nothing, really. Just that I don't have a handler," Harry said, shrugging his wings. "Mostly I'm the one asking questions. I figured erring on the side of caution would be best."

"Good. But we can't keep doing that indefinitely - they will want to know more about us, that is why they brought us here in the first place, I bet. So we still need to come up with a back story they'll believe," Hermione said, frowning. "And it has to be a damn good one, with you being breed they don't know, and we being so strange to them. Something that could cover the way we speak, and that Harry was hatched twenty-seven years ago."

Harry eyed her curiously. "I suppose they will start asking us questions, now that we've settled down," he muttered, and looked away. "Temeraire says that his egg was taken from the French," he supplied suddenly. "When his Captain took a French vessel in battle. Maybe we can use that."

"We can't say that we stole you from the French, Harry," Hermione laughed. "They'd never believe that."

"No, of course not. But imagine a ship transporting dragon eggs - that crashes or sinks or something," Harry said calmly. "And the egg washes up on shore somewhere."

Hermione blinked. "On a distant Scottish island maybe, almost empty," she muttered and fell into thought.

"Also, take in consideration that I mentioned Sirius in Messoria's and Sutton's presence," Harry said while Luna crawled over his shoulder to slide down from his back.

Hermione nodded, and sat down on the back of Harry's talons. "I think I can use this," she muttered, frowning as she thought about it. "Just give me a moment."

They waited until Hermione was done, and then listened as she laid out their supposed back-story. Even Luna listened, nodding here and there and then adding some things in her peculiar manner, saying what would and would not work until she was satisfied - which, Ginny thought, was actually rather comforting. Nothing quite compared to getting approval for a lie from a seer.

"Feel free to liven up the story, add some emotion to it," Hermione said once they were finished. "But make it simple. The more detailed we have to get, the shakier the story gets, so let's not make it anymore complicated than it ought to be."

x

The back story was made and memorised just in time, Hermione mused somewhat grimly. Harcourt, who had been obviously been assigned to their case, started on her inquiries over the breakfast when they joined her. She was gentle and not at all pushy about it, trying to keep it all as a normal, curious conversation. However, the questions were a bit too precise and evenly spread out for it to be idle chat.

At first Harcourt asked where they had been born, inquired a bit after their parents. Hermione took the chance to answer first, telling about her parents, who according to the back-story had been a medico of poor training and his wife. Ginny covered her family with saying that her father had been overly enthusiastic inventor of only meagre success and her mother had been too busy trying to control crowd of six boys to mind her much. Luna they covered by saying that they didn't really know - a point which was important in the later years of their back-story.

"I was just a little girl back then, so the details are a bit foggy," Hermione went on telling, when Harcourt asked how they had met. "And I can't remember the ship's name, but we were on the way to North America, I think. My father figured that he'd get better chance of real work there… in any case, we met on the ship."

"I was going with two of elder brothers, Bill and Charlie," Ginny agreed. "Bill worked in bank over seas, and he got a job for Charlie there, in a transport company. I think they brought me along because there was some trouble with a fellow my father knew… I'm not sure, though. It was long ago."

"And Miss Lovegood was there also, on the ship?" Harcourt asked, glancing towards the windows of the dining hall, as Luna had fled the hall as soon as she had eaten enough to manage.

"I think she was with her father, but I'm not sure," Hermione shook her head. "I can't remember. All I really remember from the whole trip is the storm."

The story was simple, and hopefully not wholly unbelievable. According to it, they had met on the transport ship, which had run into a bad storm, and suffered damage heavy enough to sink it. People on the vessel had taken rowboats to survive when the ship had finally landed. "There were the three of us on one boat, with two sailors and some other people," Hermione said quietly. "I can't remember what happened to my parents, but I'm sure they weren't there. And when the rowboat capsized… I think they must've shoved us girls to the front of the boat together, because we ended up holding onto each other."

Ginny snorted. "I can't remember anything about that," she muttered. "Except that I thought I'd die there and then. But… I guess we got lucky."

"Indeed," Harcourt said, her eyes a little wide as she leaned closer. "What happened next?"

"We woke up on the island. Ran into Harry soon after," Ginny said, snorting again. "It was a bit amusing now that I think about it. Three little girls, just survived a shipwreck - and the next thing we know there's a bloody great beast hovering about, staring down like he'd never anything like us. You can imagine the amount of running we did those first few days."

"It took us some time to slow down enough for him to explain that he had no notion of eating us," Hermione agreed, chuckling. "Even then we were more than a little leery of him for a long while. But obviously, he didn't eat us. He even brought food for us, caught fish and such so that we'd manage."

"So, Harry lived in that island?" Harcourt asked, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "He was already an adult back then, at least, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, I guess. I think he hatched on the island," Hermione shrugged. "He said that there was a man living on the island back then, Sirius, but he died of old age long before we shipwrecked."

"Oh, that explains how Harry learned to speak, then," the Captain murmured. "This Sirius wasn't his Captain, however?"

"No, I don't think so. I think Harry thought of Sirius more as a parent, or a teacher, than anything else. They were no doubt close, but Harry managed to go on without him."

"Hmm," Harcourt frowned. "You might be wrong there. It might very well be that this Sirius was in fact Harry's handler to some extend. Dragons form attachment to their handlers when they hatch, and if Sirius was present enough to impact Harry the ability of speech, it wouldn't be that big of a stretch to say that they had a bond similar to of a dragon and a Captain, even if they didn't see it that way."

"I guess you would know more of that than we do," Hermione shrugged.

The rest of the back-story was more or less straightforward. They stayed on the island for a very long time, the three of them and Harry. Luna, who had knocked her head badly somewhere during the shipwreck, had been strange ever since, but they had gotten used to that. "It's mostly thanks to Harry we survived, really. Without him we would have starved to death within a week," Hermione said. "He's been very good to us."

"I can understand that, considering the things you went through. It is a wretched thing, but I am astonished by the luck you had," Harcourt agreed. "But how did you end up here like so? I imagine that island of yours is somewhere in the Atlantic. How did you end up in Scotland from such a long distance away?"

"We wanted to leave years ago, to be honest. Ginny at least still should have some family left, and who knows, maybe my parents survived. But there was no way, so we stayed. It wasn't so bad really, it could've been much worse, so in honesty I can't say I minded…" Hermione said thoughtfully before frowning. "But there was a fire the island. Everything burned down," she murmured, frowning. "The hut, the trees, everything. And it didn't look like it would grow back. So, Harry had us climb his back and we went to search a new island."

"Flying over the Atlantic? That's madness!" Harcourt gasped. "Of course, you obviously survived, but…" she shuddered. "I would _never_…"

"Can't say it was easy," Ginny agreed. "Harry's not exactly good at long distance flying either. But it was either that or to drop down and drown."

That was most of the story. With some further details here and there and some embellishing of some parts to cover the obvious holes in others, it was actually believed at least by Harcourt. But then, unknown dragon ridden by three women in extremely rough clothes, none of whom know a thing about current state of affairs, or other dragons… their situation packed the tale up nicely.

It also helped quite a bit, Hermione thought, that the real truth was so unbelievable and unlikely that no one would ever even consider it.

"Yes, I was questioned too. By Celeritas - he's the training master here," Harry said later that day. "It's rather fascinating, that they have a dragon for a training master. He asked if I could fly for him later today, when Temeraire and Maximus are done training. He and a dragon surgeon named Keynes want to see my form to see if they can determine my breed."

"Is that wise?" Ginny asked, glancing at Hermione worriedly.

"It's wiser than to not to. Fly to your heart's content, Harry," Hermione agreed. "Let's show them you have nothing to hide."

"Hm," Harry agreed, looking pleased. He glanced up to the training dragons and said somewhat smugly; "I've been watching them do manoeuvres for a while now. I don't think even Temeraire has my manoeuvrability, even though he can hover in place whilst I can't."

"Oh really?" Ginny asked, amusedly.

"I don't think any of these other dragons could do a Woollongong Shimmy, or Aderton's Turn," Harry said thoughtfully. "Or a Wronski's feint, especially not the big ones."

"Quidditch moves?" Hermione asked in faint dismay, whilst Ginny laughed. The brunette shook her head. So many years and of course Harry still remembered Quidditch moves. "It figures," she muttered.

"I do believe you're full of hot air, Harry," Ginny laughed. "You just want to show off. But I'd for one love to see you try do a Woollongong Shimmy, being the way you are. I bet you'll get your wings in a knot."

Later with an old respectable looking old dragon watching along with some people of the covert, Harry did perform the moves which Ginny identified. The Aderton's Turn, which was to turn completely around in mid flight without loosing much of original velocity caused some amazed from the viewers, and the Woollongong Shimmy, a sort of zigzagging move which Ginny reported Harry performed wrong, made some more people to turn and watch.

The finishing move was the daring Wronski's Feint which even Hermione recognised, much to her own secret amusement. Harry did it over the loch, plummeting into a mad dive towards the surface of the water and looking like he'd crash right through it. The audience let out gasps and yells of horror when Harry roared a great gust of flames at the water's surface, before spreading his wings and angling away, only few feet away from the water's surface. While Hermione realised that Harry had used the flames to cause disturbance in the air current to aid his turn, which was rather ingenious when one about it of it, the people around gasped and someone was yelling rather loudly, "Merciful _God_! Did I just see that right?"

It wasn't before someone said, with an extremely reverential tone voice: "A _fire breather,_" that Hermione realised it wasn't the move itself that had shocked them. It took some explanation for Hermione to realise what so special there was about that - and even then she had to take a moment to wrap her head around it. She had thought that the dragons here were relatively similar to the dragons they knew from their original time, except for their intelligence and power of speech. But no, they weren't.

With his ability Harry was suddenly not just a feral, but the most valuable feral in all of Britain; the only dragon in the isles able to breathe fire.

And the implications of that gave Hermione a sudden horrible sinking feeling, as she watched the men and dragons of Loch Laggan covert rush to Harry as he landed. She knew - even without Luna's grim look or whispered, "Oh, how they covet his fire," - how bad that was for them, and their mission.

xx

Sorry for the delay. I've gotten distracted by another Harry Potter/Temeraire crossover, a monster of a oneshot that's already twenty thousand words long and it's only one third finished, if even that. I think it's going to eat me eventually Dx (edit since some people are curious: the oneshot is one I'm writing myself, called _Flying Again,_ though I might change the name. It's a sort of Transdimensional Rebirth story, with Temeraire reborn as Harry Potter and Laurence reborn as Charlie Weasley. It will obviously take some time to finish and I doubt I can upload it in sections or chapters it would ruin the flow for me, even if it would be more sensible... but once it's finished I will upload it in ffnet.)

To answer some questions; There will be no pairings, draconic or humanoid or otherwise. Harry is as long as he's ever going to get, but he is a bit under fed so he will probably get heavier. Temeraire by Naomi Novik is a series of novels, six of which have came out (plus omnibus editions and one short story in _The Dragon Book_) and three more which are meant to come out, and I think one should be able to order them from most bookstores in the net, if they can't find them in their local bookstores. And no, Harry is not at all magical, and neither is his fire - more about that in next chapter.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such


	8. Coveted fire

**VIII chapter**

**Coveted fire**

To say that Harry was uneasy would've been bit of an understatement. He had been relatively at ease with the covert of Loch Laggan in the first day, as the dragons had been polite if a little distant and the people had mostly left him alone - and no one had said a thing about having Luna climb all over him and spent her time in his presence, which was nice. It had been comfortable, exciting even, to be there - and not to be one of a kind anymore.

His ability to breathe fire had changed all that. He was one of a kind once more, at least for the British - and it told. It was rather like it had been the first weeks of Hogwarts when they hadn't been able to stop whispering about him or staring at his scar. Except the people whispering were all adults here and they weren't as much staring at them as they were gazing at him with looks of longing and awe, which was a little bit worse than being the Boy Who Lived had been.

"Breathe in, deeply," the dragon surgeon Keynes demanded, his ear pressed against Harry's chest. Harry did as told, a little irritably. He was going through an examination Celeritas had demanded he go through, to see which one of the fire breathing species he was related to and how he had been bred. Not really able to argue much, or tell the truth, Harry had submitted himself to the examination. It wouldn't have been as much of a chore, he felt, if there hadn't been such a crowd of people around him, watching and eagerly listening in on any titbit of information Keynes had to offer.

"Yes, yes, very good," the man murmured, leaning back with a thoughtful expression. "I thought the formation of the chest seemed similar…" he ran his hand down Harry's chest, pressing along the scales. "A clavicle infused with the breastbone, as I suspected. That's a tale-telling sign of your relation to the Grey Widowmaker."

"The what?" Harry asked, curious and little annoyed.

"One of the most common of the old, wild breeds of west," Keynes answered, patting his chest before leaning in to examine Harry's jaw. "Great many of our dragons have some of the Widowmaker's blood in them. It was a very wide spread species long ago, but has dwindled down to mostly nothing these years, hunted down. They were a bad tempered sort. Open your jaws, if you'd please - as wide as you can…"

Harry did, and the man examined his yaw and then his teeth. As the man peered into his mouth, one of the men watching asked, "I thought the Widowmaker wasn't a fire breather."

"It wasn't," Keynes answered from Harry's mouth. "But it has been proven that the Grey Widowmaker had a great compatibility with almost all dragon breeds - even if the type of the breast bone makes matching them with bigger dragons somewhat ineffectual. But I wouldn't be surprised to know that someone managed to bred a fire breathing ability into a line bred originally from the Widowmaker."

The man pulled back and made a grim hum. "You can close your mouth now, " he said. "My first notion was that you were bred from a Flamme-de-Gloire, but aside from shape of your legs and the way your fourth talon curves to the back, I can't see much a similarity. No, I think you are closer related to the Kaziliks," he said. "The formation of your jaw and throat are very similar from what I've read of Kaziliks… Not to mention about the spiking along your neck and back."

"He's a Turkish breed?" someone asked, sounding shocked.

"That I cannot say for certain, though I doubt the Turks would breed a Kazilik like that," Keynes said, touching Harry's neck. "Your general body temperature is much lower than could be expected from dragon related to the Kazilik, too. It's probably that you're a distant cousin, or bred from one in any case. Is it difficult for you to breathe fire? How long can you keep breathing fire - and how long is the extent of the flames, generally speaking?"

"I haven't actually tried to measure it," Harry answered a bit awkwardly. "And I've never actually _ran out_ of fire. But I've never had to breathe fire more than couple of times in a row, so I can't say for certain. Also, I can rise my body temperature if I want to by humming, but it is rather uncomfortable on warm days so I'd rather not. It's hot enough for me as it is."

"Hmm… That is a gift I've never heard of," Keynes murmured. "Hot enough, you say? Even today?"

"Well, right now it is quite pleasant," Harry allowed. It was getting late and now that the sun was setting, it was getting a bit cooler.

"A preference for cold climate, hmm…? That could suggest more northern origins than I originally imagined. Scandinavian, even, perhaps some relation to the Lindorm…" the man murmured thoughtfully. "Spread your wings, if you please. I believe the conformation of the joints will give us some clues."

Harry did as asked, spreading his wings open wide over the crowd of people surrounding him. Keynes leaned forward, examined the joints closely, before backing away to where Celeritas was watching with some other, curious dragons. "Yes, I do believe there is hint of the northern breeds in him, wouldn't you say so, Celeritas?"

"I'm sure you would know more of it than I do," the old dragon answered grimly. "The wings remind me a little of the Anglewing, I would say, however. Which would explain some of the manoeuvres he performed."

"Yes. The Anglewing and the Lindorm are said to have a common ancestor," Keynes said, nodding in agreement.

Harry sighed. It would've been more informative to him if he knew any of the breeds they were talking about. However, as they talked it started to get a bit clearer for him. He hadn't really believed it in the beginning, because the whole thing was a bit too big for him to grasp it fully, but now he was starting understand the full extend. It might very well be that he was in fact related to the dragons they spoke of - because he was their ancestor. He might even be the ancestor of every sentient dragon out there.

But how could it be that his influence over dragon kind could've spread so far? There were sentient dragons all the way to China and Africa - not to mention of North and South America. It would've believed it if it had been just Europe, maybe some of the middle east, but so far away too?

But then, it had been a very long time ago. Hermione had never been able to place the time they had landed in with accuracy, but she had said they had been some thirty, forty thousand years into the history, at least. How long did it take for dragon to lay an egg, that egg to hatch, and grow into adulthood? And if the dragon flock he had managed had continued on their original hierarchy…

He could almost imagine it, eggs he had sired hatching, the hatchlings growing into full adults. One strong male would've taken over the flock - and then driven rest of the larger males away to avoid being taken over. They would've taken over other flocks, or started new ones, sired eggs and had hatchlings and then again driven any contestants away. How much space did dragons territories take?

"You can lower your wings, now," Keynes said, walking to him. "Celeritas and I want to see more of your fire breathing. You can demonstrate over the loch."

It was more an order than request, but Harry didn't argue, merely sighed with irritation and got up to his wings. When he saw the crowd of aviators rushing to the shoreline to see, he felt some of his annoyance fade. Dragon breeds and his relation to them aside, it wasn't so bad to get to show off a little. Regardless of how he did it or why, flying had always been a great source of pride, after all. And even if he was only showing off fire breathing, that didn't mean he couldn't do some fancy flying on the side.

With that in mind, he put the matter of his lineage aside. He would talk about it later with Hermione, who no doubt could understand it better.

x

"So… fire breathing isn't a common ability with dragons?" Hermione asked with some uncertainty as they watched with Harcourt and some of the other Captains how Harry weaved and dived over the loch, breathing out long tongues of flame, or spreading his fire wide like a cloud and then flying right through it, Celeritas shouting instructions to him at the shoreline.

"Well, as special offensive traits go, fire breathing is a bit more frequent than acid spitting or water sprouting, but no, I wouldn't call the talent common," Harcourt said, looking up as well. "There are a handful of dragon breeds capable of it. We get most trouble from the French breed, the Flamme-de-Gloire, of course, but the Kazilik of the Turks are much more valuable, being a heavy weight whilst most fire breathers are middle weight. Then there is the Flecha-del-Fuego of the Spanish…"

Harcourt trailed away as Harry bathed the loch's surface with flames on the bottom of another diving manoeuvre and then made his way up again. Then she continued. "We British have never had a native fire breathing breed," she said, shaking her head with a frown. "There have been attempts to breed it into our bloodlines, but it never takes."

"I hadn't realised," Hermione murmured, frowning a little. "I thought all dragons could…"

Harcourt chuckled, patting her shoulder. "Stories of fire breathing dragons are popular," she agreed. "And with Harry as your only comparison for so long, I don't blame you for getting wrong impression. If Lily was the only dragon I knew, I dare say I would think all dragons would be able to spit acid."

"You have to wonder how they bred him," another Captain said, folding his arms as he followed Harry's form in the air with his eyes. He was a heavyset man with a loud voice that made Luna shift little closer to Ginny at Hermione's side. The man didn't seem to notice, as he shook his head and snorted. "I don't think I've seen a beast so evenly coloured except for Temeraire and the Fleur-de-Nuits, the damned devils."

"I agree," Harcourt murmured. "All fire breathers tend to be rather brightly coloured. The Flamme-de-Gloire for example, not to mention the Flecha-del-Fuego. And the Kazilik is mostly red as well."

Hermione could say little to that, and just looked up to Harry as he spun in the air and roared out more fire while the aviators pondered on it. She made a mental note to find out more about dragon breeds, perhaps see if there was a book on them or something of the sort, but right now wasn't the time to ponder on it.

"He's a feral, wasn't he?" a man somewhere behind her muttered to another. "But a good mannered one. Do you suppose…?"

"Who knows. It would be _famous_ if he would accept a handler…"

Hermione frowned, forcing herself not to look behind and at the men, even though Ginny at her side did. That, she felt, was something they would need to keep a close eye on. It wasn't the first of many whispers she had heard since Harry's fire breathing had came into light, which had not been more than two hours earlier. The dragon that had been previously just a well mannered feral and of no true importance was now being eyed by every unharnessed officer in the covert with a certain longing. Even she, as foreign as the whole thing was to her, could see the reason behind it.

And worse yet, she understood what it would mean for them. Harry was a valuable creature to the Aerial Corps, now. All hope they had had of somehow wringing themselves free and finding a way out of the whole situation was gone. Even though they were polite about it, it was obvious that the Aerial Corps had no intention of letting Harry go now.

She bit her lip and contributed nothing to the discussion as Harry displayed his talents, and once the black dragon landed she determinedly pushed forward to listen the discussion between him, Celeritas and the dragon surgeon, with Ginny and slightly wavering Luna following closely behind.

"Excellent manoeuvrability, I would say," Celeritas was saying with satisfaction. "And you have certain measure of agility with your fire, as well as good control with extend and spread. Good, very good. However, I noticed that the reach and spread seemed to decrease towards the end. Do you feel tired at all?"

"It's not that I'm tired," Harry answered while Keynes pressed his ear against his chest again and listened to his breathing. "But I think I can run out of fire after all," he added and let out a sort of, rough purr that made the surgeon pull back quickly. "Sorry," the dragon said and exhaled bit of smoke, continuing to purr. "I'm a little cold now."

"Hmm," Keynes hummed, as Hermione and the two other women stepped closer. "You said that you can increase your body temperature by humming? Yes… I think your amount of fire is directly connected to the regulation of your body temperature. This humming effect most likely increases the fire, somehow. It is a different from the way most fire breathers operate."

"Well, I wouldn't know," Harry answered, his neck spikes rattling. "Is it important how it works?"

"Why, of course it is important," Keynes answered, shaking his head. "If it's by manner that it completely unknown and new, it might not be heritable though breeding and your progeny might not get it."

"Excuse me, my _what_?" Harry asked indignantly.

That, Hermione mused with some despair, was the greatest problem.

x

Ginny couldn't have kept herself from scowling even if she had felt any indication to try, which she most certainly did not. Not after watching how the aviators prodded and measured Harry like some fine piece of meat. Listening to Celeritas and Keynes ponder on the best breeding mates had been extremely infuriating, even if they had seemed to only ponder on it theoretically. But that, as annoying as it had been, had been no where near as much as the sight of several of the Aviators approaching Harry with their queries afterwards, about what he felt about harnessing and such. Some had even offered him bribes of meat.

Not to mention about that they had had Harry so swamped that the women had gotten no chance to talk with him alone. Eventually Hermione had just given up and said that they'd catch Harry later, when the people would calm down and hopefully leave him be for a moment.

Harcourt, who had been leading them back to the castle for a late meal, seemed to realise their mood. She sighed softly, but her expression was somewhere between placating and already defeated when she ventured to say, "I am deeply sorry for all this," she said. "I know it must be difficult for you to see, but this means great deal for us. Britain has never had a fire breather, you see. It is bound to make the men exited."

"And I suppose saying that Britain _still_ doesn't have one wouldn't really mean much to you," Ginny almost snarled. She was rather grateful that Luna had opted to stay outside - it was hard to be angry in the seer's presence and the redhead very much wanted to be angry right now. "You've already decided that he's your property."

The female captain gave her a compassionate smile. "It is not like that at all, I assure you," she said gently, but it was hardly convincing after what they had said. "But you must understand. We are in desperate need of dragons. British dragons are outnumbered in comparison to what the French have - and though we have our Longwings and Regal Coppers, the French have the Fleur-de-Nuit and the Flamme-de-Gloire. The mere _hope_ of fire breathers in our lines is immeasurably valuable. Even if merely for the morale boost the thought gives."

"So, the whole talk about harnessing Harry, breeding him, that was just that, just talk?" Ginny asked with disbelief.

"Well, I wouldn't quite say that," Harcourt admitted with an uneasy look. "Your Harry, though untrained and bit underfed, is still a good sized middle weight. Even without the fire breathing, he is a beast with some potential. And since he hasn't truly shown any aversion towards harnessing…"

Hermione turned to the woman sharply. "You really do want to harness him?" she asked with somewhat high voice.

"With training and proper diet, I have no doubt he can achieve good battle weight," Harcourt said uneasily. "For a feral he has extremely even manner too, proven by his tolerance over you. Make no mistake, this is extremely rare among dragons that have never been harnessed - even ones that had captains and then lost them are hard to persuade to it. With it having been so long since he lost this… Sirius of his, I would've expected him to be more against the concept. And yet he said, did he not, that he wouldn't mind a harness, he'd even prefer it?"

"Ah… I don't think he meant that he'd want the slavery that went along with it," Ginny snapped. "He only said that harness would be safer for _us_. He didn't mean -"

"It's not slavery by any means," Harcourt hurriedly cut in. "I apologise if I seem too forward; I assure I mean no insult to either you or to Harry. But we _are_ in dire need."

"And would you be in quite such a _dire need_ if he wasn't a fire breather?" Ginny asked cuttingly.

Harcourt didn't seem to know what to say to that, so she merely looked ahead a little miserably before sighing. "You do understand that we treat our dragons with the highest measure of care and devotion?" she then said, quietly. "And a dragon of Harry's type would receive nothing but the best of care. His value is too high for any measure of mistreatment, however things will unfold." "But he still won't have the choice of refusing," Hermione said flatly

Harcourt looked between her blank expression and Ginny's outright furious one, and sighed. "I _am_ sorry," she then said earnestly. "I know it is nothing like what you've adjusted to, living alone like you have so far, but you must see that it cannot continue. Dragons require enormous amounts of feeding, so you should understand that no one wants them to wander around, doing whatever they want. Especially not a _fire breather_ that could leave untold damage in his wake."

"We could find a way of taking care of that," Hermione argued. "Buy a farm, buy food for him."

The captain shook her head sadly. "I am afraid the people of this kingdom aren't quite ready yet to see a dragon in casual handling of three women," she answered. "As such even the knowledge of female Captains such as myself is kept from common population."

"So, it's population's general opinion that says that he's either imprisoned to these… breeding grounds like some sort of animal, or he starts fighting your wars and doing whatever you order?" Ginny started angrily, but stopped when Hermione lifted her hand at her.

"Is that why you brought us here, to this covert?" the brunette asked. "Were you planning to lay this ultimatum at our feet from the beginning?" She sounded rather betrayed at the possibility, not that Ginny could blame her. She too had rather liked Harcourt in the beginning.

"Of course not," Harcourt chuckled, shaking her head. "When the covert was informed of a dragon sighting, we expected to see a feral, or in worse case the French, maybe a spy of some sort," she said, reminding Ginny of how relieved Sutton had seemed to find that they were British. "But of course, a feral of Harry's size can't very well be left to his own devices. Imagine beast like that getting hungry with no food in sight. Ferals are known to snatch up a human if nothing else is available…" the Captain smiled grimly. "We did indeed think in the beginning that the best course of action would be to send Harry straight to breeding grounds - that is the protocol in situations like these."

The woman shook her head. "However… because of his calm manner and the fact that he does not seem wholly against the concept of harnessing, some are obviously harbouring the notion of seeing him harnessed as a fighting dragon," Harcourt added. "We need more dragons _now_ after all, and even if a breeding program should succeed, who knows how long the eggs would take to hatch. Both concepts have their benefits."

Hermione sighed, running her hand over her eyes and then looking away, deep in thought. Ginny scowled silently at her back, before glancing at Harcourt. "And that's really all the options we have? Harry either joins you or goes to the breeding grounds? We have no choice to, I don't know, go our merry way?"

"Well, naturally it depends on the opinions of the Admiralty, but…" Harcourt left the sentence open, shaking her head. She seemed to know that there really was no doubt.

Hermione let out a soft hum of displeasure and eyed the captain sharply. "What is it that you are actually asking from _us_?" she asked.

"Before your less than affirmative reaction, I would've asked you to see if you could… put in a good word for us, and see if you can persuade Harry to see the service in positive light, perhaps even see the benefit in it," Harcourt said. "But I suppose you won't be willing to do that."

Hermione smiled rather sardonically at her before shaking her head and looking away. "I'm sorry," she said. "But I can't speak for Harry. He obliges to us because of friendship - and because he cares for us - and even if I could use that to sway his decision, I wouldn't. Besides, he is not a mindless beast under our control. He has mind of it's own."

"Hermione," Ginny snapped. "You can't be saying…"

"It is his choice, in the end," she answered, and gave her a sideways look. "We are not his _masters._"

Ginny frowned at that, but looked away. No, they weren't Voldemort, nor were they Dumbledore. As little as the idea pleased her, it was in the end Harry's decision. He had a mind and opinions of his own, and the decisions made for him should also be made _by_ him. Scowling, the redhead conceded the point. "Fine," she muttered.

"I hope…" Harcourt started, frowning worriedly and then coughing. "I hope I have not insulted you," she said quietly. "Or… or provoked a lasting acrimony between us."

"No. I understand you were probably ordered to ask," Hermione said, waving the matter aside with her hand. "It's alright, or as alright as it can be under the circumstances."

Ginny had no intention to give such easy forgiveness for such infuriating offer, but said nothing and after a moment of eying them Harcourt smiled carefully. "Thank you," she said. "Now, how about we continue to the dining hall? It is late, but there should still be some food available."

Thankfully, Harcourt seemed to sense that the former loose atmosphere was gone and after she had shown them to the dining hall, she apologised and then left them alone at the larger rectangle table so that she could join the other officers in the senior officer's table. Ginny spent a moment after her departure glaring at the table, even ignoring the servants as Hermione gently requested some food for them, before finally sighing and looking up. "Fine mess," she muttered. "Fucking fine mess."

"Hmm. To be honest, I did expect something like this," Hermione admitted under her breath, meaning her words only to her and keeping them unheard by the rest of the people in the hall. "Not the whole recruiting Harry to the Aerial Corps, that was a bit of a surprise, but I did think they'd want to restrain him somehow. Hell, we _all_ expected it, just not like this."

"We did?" Ginny asked, frowning.

"Yes, except we'd thought he'd go to a dragon reserve, remember?" Hermione asked, smiling faintly. "I suppose the breeding grounds aren't that different, except for the rather… descriptive name. And different purpose."

Ginny snorted and then frowned. "What will we do?" she asked quietly. "I suppose we can't even run away, with all the dragons here."

"We will have to wait and see," the elder woman murmured after a moment. "Though I don't think the situation is completely hopeless yet. We do have other options."

"We do?" Ginny asked, frowning.

"We do," Hermione nodded, looking determined. Then the servant returned with some food for them, and they opted to leave the discussion until later - when they'd have Luna's input on it as well. Ginny was still a bit comforted, because despite her anger Hermione did seem to have an ace left and that made the situation seem a little less hopeless.

x

Harry shook himself, making his wings shudder and his horns rattle. He felt tired and weary after the day, though the exhaustion was more mental than physical. The flying hadn't been all that taxing, but all the new knowledge was making his head feel heavy, not to mention about the new possibilities and potential outcomes.

He hadn't really thought that much of his own fate and what would happen with him after the whole time travel thing - it was a secondary issue in comparison to the success of their mission and fell far behind the safety of the girls and similar matters. He had just figured he'd end up in a dragon reserve and accepted that - even welcomed the thought. Dragons in dragon reserves didn't need to do much, as he understood, after all. All they needed to do was to, well, _be_ _there_. And hopefully be not as dangerous because of it.

But this made his head spin. The concept that these people wanted to _breed_ him was, well, rather disturbing. Of course, he had experience in the matter, he was no bloody virgin, but that had been for comfort and for pleasure, not for bloody eggs. It made him feel like a breeding stallion kept only for his genes - and despite his casualness about his own fate before, he didn't quite care for the notion of being treated like animal, kept only for such a purpose.

The concept of being harnessed was a little less bothersome in comparison. However, the more the aviators pushed at it, hinting of possibilities and suggesting that maybe he'd like to try… it was making his hide crawl. Sort of speak.

"I think I am ready to lay down for sleep, if you don't mind," he finally said and detached himself from the lingering officers who had been trying to allure him with tales of battles and riches he could win by taking prizes. The man, who had been explaining about a good captain could buy him jewellery, like Temeraire's impressive chest plate, gave him a confused look but Harry ignored it in favour turning and leaving - and once there was enough distance between him and humans, he spread his wings and beat himself slightly into the air as gliding away was quicker escape than merely walking.

"Do you mind if I join you?" Harry asked, seeing that Temeraire was lying not far from the spot where he himself had spent the previous night.

"Oh, not at all," the big dragon said, seeming pleasantly surprised. He raised his head, as Harry settled to the grass, trying to relax after the tension that had taken over him as the evening had progressed. "I do not mind the company in the least," Temeraire said. "Only, I do wonder why you would choose to come here, when the courtyard seems so much more pleasant."

"It's too warm for me," Harry answered, glancing at the dragon confusedly. "I suppose you like it when the ground is warm like that?"

"Oh, yes. It does feel very nice," Temeraire agreed.

"Then why are you here and not there?" the smaller dragon asked a little confusedly. Temeraire had been sleeping on the grass in the previous night too.

The big dragon hesitated and sighed, looking towards the courtyard with a look of unhappiness. "I have not been here for that long," he admitted quietly. "And I look somewhat different from them. I do not think the other dragons would welcome me." He sounded very young as he said it.

Harry tilted his head at this confusedly, looking between Temeraire and then the dragons lying about the courtyard. He hadn't given much thought to it before, but Temeraire did really look different from the other dragons. Aside from Harry, he was the only dragon evenly coloured. But unlike Harry, he had no spikes and horns along his back. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind," Harry said. "I didn't even notice that you're any way different."

"Thank you," the big dragon said, and looked at him thoughtfully. "What is it like, when you breathe fire?" he asked curiously.

"I don't really know how to explain it," Harry said, shaking his head. "It's like breathing for me, but different. I breathe in normally, but I exhale through a different path," he shrugged his wings. "It feels warm in my throat and in my mouth, but that's about it."

"Oh," Temeraire said, looking thoughtful. "I would like to know how to breathe fire," he then said longingly. "It would be very useful, I'm sure. Laurence had told me about battles where he has seen fire breathers attacking ships - he says they can do incredible damage."

"On a ship? Yeah, I imagine they can," Harry snorted, trying to remember what sort of ships they had in this age. He was pretty sure they were mostly wooden and with great amounts of gunpowder on board.

"Have you ever attacked a ship?" Temeraire asked eagerly.

"I've never even seen one," Harry laughed, shaking his head. "You were hatched on one, weren't you?"

"Yes," Temeraire nodded, somewhat proudly. "It was Laurence's ship first, the HMS Reliant, but when I chose him for my captain he had to stand down and hand the ship over to Mr. Riley," he added, the proud tone of his voice fading a little. "Laurence says that he doesn't mind, of course." It sounded rather like an excuse.

"It… isn't common for Navy captains to harness dragons, then?" Harry asked. It didn't sound very viable system to him. Sounded rather like a Transfiguration master suddenly taking over a potions laboratory.

"No, it isn't. People were very angry at Laurence because of it, at first," the big dragon said a little uncertainly, glancing towards the castle like he wasn't sure if they had actually stopped being angry yet. "One very unpleasant aviator said to me once that Laurence should've never tried, that his duty should've been to the Reliant. Of course, Laurence said he was lying and I believe him, but…" he trailed away and shook his head. "Maximus says that aviators start training when they are young, and Laurence doesn't have that… so we are both being trained here."

Harry glanced at the big dragon. It was somewhat strange to hear a creature so big being so insecure. He had to wonder if it was because Temeraire was so young, or because of the whole dragon and Captain bond. As far as he had seen, there was a great deal of weight on the bond, even if it seemed purely emotional. He still didn't completely understand the whole thing, though. Luna had compared it to the familiar bond Harry had once had with Hedwig, the one Dumbledore had had with Fawkes, but it didn't really seem quite right.

"What is it like, to have a captain?" he asked after a quiet moment, for the first time seriously trying to figure out what the whole thing was really about.

"I… cannot explain it, really. What is it like being without one?" Temeraire asked, looking down to him. It was a rhetorical question. "It is nice to have a captain. Laurence knows things I do not, and I learn great deal from him. He teaches me things I've never heard of, and he guides me," the big dragon said, thoughtfully, absently lifting his forearm and nudging his impressive chest plate. "I'm sure Laurence is the nicest man I shall ever meet. And I wouldn't know what to do without him…"

Harry looked up to him. The explanation wasn't anywhere near as good as he had been hoping, but he now had a feeling that Temeraire simply couldn't really explain it. Perhaps no dragon could. But Harry understood now where it came from, in a way. Impressed on a human fresh from shell, a human who no doubt fed and washed him, took care of him and guided him…? That was far, far closer than any familiar bond. That was probably even closer than parental love because children eventually left. Dragon and Captain on other hand seemed to stay together until death.

Harry looked away again and hummed thoughtfully. Burst of warmth ran through him, so he stopped and let it fade. It was nice cool evening and he didn't want to ruin it by rising his temperature. "I see now why you think it might be lonely, to be without a handler," he said. But he didn't really see why a dragon _needed_ one.

Though he had to muse that without a handler it might very well be that most dragons wouldn't have consented to serve the Aerial Corps. A handler no doubt made it easier to get them to bear harness and their crews and fly where ever the humans decided they should. He didn't think there was much a trouble convincing them to fight, though. All dragons he had talked with seemed to look forward to when they could fight, except maybe for the smaller courier beasts.

"Are you?" Temeraire asked sympathetically.

"Lonely? No, not really. I have my girls," Harry shrugged his wings, thinking of Hermione, Ginny and Luna. But he couldn't help but feel a little bit of worry. There was still the mission, the reason they had set out in the first place - Hermione's quest through time. Harry had said that he didn't mind staying behind if it got to that, that he even preferred it - and he had spoken the truth, then. But now? If the girls would go up and ahead through time, and he'd be penned up in some breeding ground for the rest of his days, seeing harnessed dragons with their captains and crews while he remained without such company…

He sighed, exhaling some smoke through his nostrils. It didn't seem such a pleasant concept anymore.

"Perhaps the Aerial Command would see it fit to give you a Captain," Temeraire said, though he sounded a little dubious. "They tried with me, tried to replace Laurence with an unpleasant aviator, in the beginning. Of course, I did not stand for it, but I've seen that not all of them are unpleasant in the least. Perhaps one of them…"

"I doubt I'd like it," Harry answered. It was different, flying with the girls because they were friends and it was his job to look after them. The idea of flying under orders of someone he didn't even know… He doubted he'd care for it. Then again, he had been wrong about things he cared about before. "But who knows," he murmured, glancing away when he heard a voice calling for Temeraire.

It was captain Laurence, who carrying something as he walked closer. "There you are, my dear," the man said once he was near enough. "I thought you might be sleeping."

"No, I am not tired at all, Laurence," Temeraire assured with natural fondness making his deep voice seem warmer.

"So I see. Well, I thought you might like for us to continue on our reading, my dear. You wanted us start on section three, I believe," the man said, holding out a book for the big dragon to see and smiling up to him with equal fondness. "But if you are in middle of a discussion, we can continue tomorrow," he added, nodding towards the smaller dragon.

"Reading?" Harry asked curiously while looking between them curiously.

"Yes, Laurence is reading Principia Mathematica for me," Temeraire said nodding. "It is very fascinating."

"Principia _what_? You mean you read mathematical texts?" the smaller dragon asked a bit faintly.

"Well, Laurence does. The books are too small for me to hold, and I couldn't possibly turn the pages without tearing them," Temeraire said, sounding a bit bothered by that. He shook his head and turned to Laurence. "I would very much like to continue, Laurence. Do you mind if Harry listens as well? I'm sure he would like it."

"Of course not, not in the least," the man said as he stepped forward. Harry watched curiously as the man climbed up to Temeraire's foreleg, and made himself comfortable there. While the smaller dragon smothered the urge to grin at how Luna-like the move seemed to him, Laurence placed the other thing he had been carrying - an unlit lantern - next to him. Probably meant for when the night got darker and there wouldn't be enough light to read.

Then the captain opened the book and cleared his throat while Temeraire leaned in curiously. "Section three. Of the motion of bodies in eccentric Conic sections," he started. "If a lody revolves in an ellipsis, it is required to find the law of the centripetal force tending to the focus of the ellipsis…"

Harry stared at them with disbelief for a moment. The further Laurence got in the reading the less he understood. The concept of dragon enjoying _mathematics_ of all things was weird enough, but this stuff sounded like something that belonged in a university. And regardless, Temeraire was nodding like he understood - and soon he was adding his opinions! The fact that the dragon seemed to understand the stuff better than man reading it was rather bewildering.

Apparently dragons weren't only _sentient_. Some of them were obviously pretty Merlin damned smart too. As Harry turned his eyes away in hopes of blocking out the headache-inducing mathematical talk, he wondered how many dragons were there that were as smart. Some he had talked with earlier that day didn't seem all that brilliant, but there was Celeritas who was obviously very knowledgeable and now Temeraire - and Messoria and Lily weren't exactly dull minded either.

Well, he had to amend that it wasn't really _that_ big of a shock, or at least it shouldn't have been. Goblins were more intelligent than most of wizards. Centaurs weren't anything to sneeze at either. It was only the fact that he wasn't adjusted to this all yet that was making it difficult for him.

He shook his head, and let the talk of the semi-axes of the hyperbola and perpendicular to the diameter flow right past him. Instead he looked over the courtyard and the loch shore, until his eyes landed on a lone long haired figure, standing near a cluster of trees to the far left. It was Luna, and she had something in her arms.

"Excuse me," he said and stood up to. Thankfully neither Temeraire nor Laurence seemed to take offend as he headed off, apparently having noticed that he wasn't all that interested in their mathematics. Leaving them behind, Harry beat his wings once and glided the last way towards the girl to see that what she was holding… was an owl.

"What's this?" Harry asked curiously once he was near enough. The owl in Luna's hold gave him a very startled look and ruffled its feathers with obvious discomfort, but didn't try to fly away.

"Hermione needs one," Luna said, holding the nervous little owl for Harry to see. "What do you think?"

"The little guy has guts," Harry said amusedly, as the owl let out a shrill noise and puffed its feathers. He was curious about how the woman had managed to get the obviously wild creature to come to her, but… she was Luna. "Why does Hermione need an owl?" he asked and then amended; "Whom is Hermione going to write a letter to?" There was only so many purposes a witch needed an owl for after all.

"To whom it may concern," Luna smiled and sighed. "This day spun about and around," she said tiredly.

"Yes, I suppose it did," Harry agreed, settling down beside her and nudging her shoulder gently with his snout whilst ignoring the glare the owl gave him. "Are you alright?"

"Mind drifted. Distance helped," she said, leaning against his cheek and sighing. "It'll spin faster now. And slower. And then faster again. They will try and put a barrier on you, to stop us."

"A barrier to stop you?" Harry asked, looking at her seriously. "What do you mean?"

"Your fire," she answered with another, heavier sigh. "They need it _so_."

Harry laid his horns down with unease and narrowed his eyes. It seemed like things weren't about to get any easier. He closed his eyes for a moment and then sighed, taking some measure of comfort from the feel of her weight against him. Then he opened his eyes again. "Maybe you should take the owl to Hermione, since she has uses for it," he suggested.

"Not yet," she answered and lifted the owl to her shoulder. It let out a screech and flapped its wings a little with unease, but stayed on her shoulder as she climbed up to his foreleg and pressed against his chest. "She words her problem," Luna said. "Carefully circling, carefully avoiding. But she is smart. Won't lie. Doesn't dare to. It's too important."

"Hermione?" Harry asked, wondering if Hermione as really writing a letter that very moment. But to whom? Who did they know in this time? He thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. He wasn't about to give himself a headache by trying to guess what Hermione was doing. The mathematics had been just about enough of headache inducement for him. "What is she writing about?" he asked instead.

"Us," Luna answered, and smiled up to him sadly. "It's the third option she reaches for."

"Oh," Harry murmured. "Will it work?"

Luna frowned and looked away thoughtfully. Then she shrugged her shoulders, almost knocking the owl off accidentally. "Plans work as they do, or don't if they don't," she said. "Too many opinions affecting. Yours, most of all."

"Mine?" the dragon asked with surprise.

"Yours," Luna agreed. Somehow, the sad way she said it made it sound very ominous.

"Well, I'll be sure to make my opinion a good one, then," Harry said a bit worriedly, lowering his head and resting it against the ground. "You're very bad for my stress levels sometimes," he murmured, eyeing the woman with a sigh. "Always making me worry about the future."

"Future takes care of itself," Luna laughed while the owl, who had been eying Harry with some measure of worry, jumped up to his wings and flied to Harry's shoulders. There he selected the tallest spike just above Harry's spine, and perched himself on it, ruffling again. Luna chuckled after him, before stretching herself out on Harry's leg on her stomach. "Mmm, bellows of a beast," she murmured.

Harry chuckled and started to hum, making her make a sound of contentment in return as the chest she was resting against started to turn warmer. Like that they spent good half an hour, Harry keeping his body temperature level while she enjoyed the warmth like a content cat.

They were eventually joined by Hermione and Ginny who, Harry was happy to find, were no longer being followed by the aviators. "I guess they're confident we're not spies anymore," Hermione answered him when he asked about it. "I see you managed to detach yourself from your new admirers."

"Very funny," Harry snorted, blowing a gust of hot air at her.

"Yeah," Hermione agreed, reaching out and resting her hand on his forehead for a moment. "We'll get out of this mess," she promised. "These people can find their fire breather elsewhere."

"Oh?" Harry murmured, raising his head a little and nuzzling his cheek against her hand. "And that wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the owl Luna caught for you?"

"She did?" Hermione asked with surprise and glanced towards the happily dozing blonde woman, before her eyes caught the sight of the little owl that was balancing on the tip of one of Harry's horns. "Well, that takes care of that, I suppose. I was worried that catching a wild owl might prove out to be difficult," she said, and held out her arm. The owl let out a shrill hoot and flew down, landing on her arm and puffing his feathers while glaring Harry.

"Seems like gutsy little thing," Ginny noted, grinning.

"I thought so too," the dragon agreed with a snort.

"All the better for us," Hermione said, and turned to the owl. "I don't have the letter written yet, but I will have it by tomorrow morning. Could you come again by then? I'll give you something to eat if you do."

The owl considered this and let out a noise of agreement, before ruffling his feathers again, sending one more glare at Harry, and flying off.

"So, who are you writing to?" Harry asked curiously, glancing at the short haired brunette. "I didn't think we knew anyone around here."

"We don't," Hermione said, smiling confidently as she folded her arms and looked after the owl as it vanished into the cover of the trees. "But we don't need to."

xx

Merry Christmas! And sorry for the long wait. My attention has strayed off to Stargate crossovers, and this story has been sitting still for a while, with me sitting on this last chapter in hopes of my inspiration returning, and then to put it up on special occasion. Like Christmas. This story is _not _abandoned. Just on that hold every story of mine tends to go. I will swing back to it the next time I get the urge to reread the Temeraire books.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


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